The Bourne Rebellion
by Hawkward Russian
Summary: Manila was just the beginning. Aaron and Marta are still on the run, and their enemies are growing more advanced and more deadly. Someone has to stop Rick Byer, and Aaron knows that he and Marta cant do it alone. He has a plan, and a secret, but can he keep himself and Marta alive long enough to put that plan into action? Eventual Aaron Cross/Jason Bourne team up!
1. A Job to Do

**Author's Note:**

**Hello Everybody!**

**So this is my first ever Fan Fiction, and I am really excited (and a little nervous) to see what ya'll think of it! **

** I know everyone says it and you are probably sick of hearing (reading?) it by now, but could you please leave a review? As stated above, this is my first Fan Fiction and any feedback would go a long way.**

**Soooooo, read it, enjoy it, leave a review, (Good or bad. I take _constructive criticism_ well and to heart) and make me perform a spontaneous happy dance! ;D**

**Disclaimer:****I do not own the Bourne Legacy, or the Bourne Franchise, or any of the characters. I just like to daydream and make stories. :)**

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><p><span><strong>Marta:<strong>

The wind whistled in my ears, making my mouth feel dry and sticky, as we rode on at an insane speed, still dogged by our relentless enemy. For my first time on a motorcycle, I cant say that I was enjoying the ride. I had been nearly thrown off and run over by a bus, been shot at, been chased by the Manila police, and was still being pursued by a crazy man who just _wouldn't give up_.

The fact that Aaron was driving was the only thing keeping me sane!

_Aaron._ He had saved my life so many times, and through all the horrific _madness_ of the past week, he was always there—calm and protective, at my side. It still surprised me how cool and calculating he could be in the face of danger. Fear makes me freeze and become bewildered, but with Aaron, it wakes him up; makes him faster and smarter. I suppose that is all my doing, with all the physical and mental enhancement drugs that I practically spoon-fed him.

_No, you just loaded the gun. _The words Aaron shouted at me, that day we first went on the run, still hurt. A part of me tells me that I didn't know, that I was just doing it for the science, which is true—and what I told Aaron. But deep down, I know that I chose for it to be that way—to be ignorant of the facts even though they were staring me in the face.

I'm just starting to get used to the fact that Aaron could kill me in less than 3 seconds, if he chose. All thanks to me and years of training.

Still, after all we'd been through—now that I know who he truly is—I would trust him with my life, and right now, I had to.

My arms tightened around his waist as I clung on for dear life. Behind us, I could still hear the whine of the motorcycle driven by our pursuer. Even with Aaron's skill we couldn't shake our tail. We drove into a farmers market of sorts, and I was suddenly jerked into reality by the fact that we were being shot at.

Again.

Instinctively I ducked my head and tensed into as small a form as possible, pressing up against Aaron. He made a sound and put on an extra burst of speed as we sped past, and out, of the line of fire. Suddenly banking sharply, Aaron brought us around in a U-turn and gunned the engine directly towards the man chasing us for a pass-by. Drawing out his gun from the waistband of his pants, Aaron opened fire and didn't stop shooting till he hit his target. The man, who had been shot in the shoulder, sagged and losing control of his bike, crashed into a fruit stand where he was hurled roughly from his seat and into the crates of produce. Looking back, I noticed with instant relief, that he didn't get up.

Aaron gave a cry and dropped his gun where it clattered on the pavement, and I noticed, for the first time, the graze on his shoulder—a shot that must have passed just inches from my face. With concern, I surveyed the rest of his body and noted a much more serious gunshot wound on his thigh. Unable to stop myself, I touched it lightly, and my fingers came back red and sticky with blood.

His blood.

"You're shot!"

"It's alright," he responded, brushing it off.

It is _not _alright.

"Pull over", I cry. With the immediate threat gone, my only thought is to get Aaron treated. "Pull over", I repeat, in a gentler tone.

"I've just got to us to the water." He says softly, and he drops a hand to claim mine in a comforting grasp.

I am not okay with this, but I trust his judgment, so I hug him to me all the tighter, shifting my hand that's free, to brush his and cling to his fingertips like a child.

The minutes tick by and we drive on.

Gradually I perceive that we are slowing down. My heart drops as I notice that Aaron's head is drooping and he seems to be fighting to keep the hand of his injured arm on the handlebars. After another attempt to re-grip the handlebar, his hand slips off altogether and he left it to hang loosely at his side. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I tried to peer into his face, my eyes filled with worry, but my seat behind him prevented me from doing so.

Every fiber of my being screams for him to pull over so that I can _help_ him. Every fiber of my being wills him strength.

_Come on, Aaron. Stay with me._

I am just about to ask him again to pull over, no, to _demand_ that he pulls over, when I hear the throaty whine of a motorcycle behind us, and my heart drops once more as I see that the man assigned to kill us, now bloodied, bruised, and dirty, is still hot on our heels.

I cant believe it.

_Just die already!_

"Aaron!" I cry.

He looks back and I can feel his body tense and see his jaw clench, as he too sees that we are once again being pursued.

With an effort, he swings his arm back onto the handlebars and we once again speed away, closely followed by our assailant.

We weave, in and out of the streets and pathways, driving down alleys and through busy market places, but as the chase drags on, we are slowing and our enemy gains. When we are almost side by side, I look at Aaron in desperation, but his head hangs loosely and he is entirely unresponsive.

It seemed he was on the very verge of unconsciousness, using every last ounce of his strength to grip the gas and stay in his seat, clinging to that small thread of consciousness just by sheer willpower.

I have never felt so alone, as in that moment.

We were now driving directly side by side with our assailant, and my blood ran cold as I looked into the soulless eyes of the man whose mission was to kill me and Aaron. I wondered briefly what life he had left behind when he first took his blue and green pills. Did he have a wife? A child? Had he joined on his own will, or was he forced?

But my time for reflection was up. The man whose name I did not know, and who I probably would never know, was shifting in his seat, getting into position to attack.

I had to act, and now.

Quickly unbuckling my helmet, I swung it erratically at the man seated on the motorbike beside us. He easily swerved to avoid it, and I was nearly thrown to the pavement as the momentum of the swing knocked me off balance.

I was stuck in an awkward position, half on my seat, half falling off, clinging to Aaron with one hand and the bike with the other, when the man once again brought his bike beside ours. It was then that I realized that I was in the perfect position to kick him, so, rearing back my foot, I struck out at him with all the force my position would allow. I hit him squarely in the ribs, the force of my kick causing him and the bike to swerve drastically to the left.

Straight into a cement pillar.

The momentum from the speeds we were traveling at caused the bike to twist and splinter in mid air, leaving behind a wreckage and heap of metal. I didn't have time to look at the body, but I knew, instinctively, that that's what it was. No one, not even a super-soldier, could survive that.

My relief, however, lasted but a moment, as in the next I realized that we were heading straight for a cement wall.

"Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!" I screamed, hoping that he would put on the brakes, but he was unresponsive. Making a split second judgment call, I clutched the limp body of Aaron to my chest, and leaned back my weight to the side, causing the bike to topple and us to fall to the ground. All three of us, the bike, Aaron, and I, slid across the pavement, our momentum propelling us forward. Thankfully the bike drifted in a different direction, so that Aaron and I were not crushed by it.

We hit the wall hard, feet first, and for a moment, my world was pain. My legs burned from sliding on the pavement, and my bones throbbed from the hard impact against the wall. Beside me, Aaron also writhed in pain and rolled over onto his back. The crash seemed to have jolted him awake from his semi-unconsciousness, for it was his movement that brought me to reality again. Rolling onto my side I looked at him.

"You okay?" I asked breathless, failing to hide the grimace on my face.

His eyes were closed in pain, but he nodded, not able to catch his breath and form words. Again, his hand came up and fumbled around blindly for mine. A small smile spread on my lips and I met him halfway. He let out a breath and relaxed his head against the pavement, the tension on his face melting, when his fingers laced between mine.

We clung to each other's hand, supporting each other, and willing the strength we had such precious amounts of ourselves, to flow into the other.

Presently, I looked around. Behind me, the piece of scrap-metal that was previously a motorcycle, still lay where it fell, smoking slightly. Just beyond the tire, I could just see a bloodied and lifeless hand. I was suddenly alerted by a sound off to my left and, turning, I saw a middle aged Filipino staring at us and the wreckage we had left behind. Beside, and slightly behind him, stood a small boy I took to be his son.

The older man's eyes met mine.

"Will you help us?" I asked, hardly daring to hope that he would, much less understand me.

The man looked back at the body beside the motorcycle.

"Please," I repeated, my voice sounding foreign in my own ears.

He looked at me again, swallowed, and then slowly gave a small nod.

Letting out the breath that I was unaware that I had been holding, I fell back onto the hot pavement and closed my eyes. I could have fallen asleep from exhaustion and slept for a day, right then and there in the sweltering heat on the pavement of some wharf in Manila.

But there was still work to be done.

My hand was still locked in Aaron's so I tilted my head to look at him beside me. He had passed out, his body unable to hold on any longer. He looked so peaceful, even innocent. His body was limp, his eyes closed, his facial muscles relaxed. The only movement came from the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. The temptation to curl up beside him and close my eyes was great. I just wanted to be done. Done fighting, done scheming, done running, but I knew that, if Aaron were in my place, he would never stop until I was safe.

"Don't worry Aaron," I whispered to the man beside me. "I'll take care of us."

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><p><strong>Authors Note:<strong>

**So? What did ya'll think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the reviews! (Please, please, please)**

**The next chapter will be all new stuff, so stick around! I'll post as soon as I can, but I can guarantee you that it will be faster if you all leave me lovely reviews! (Hint, hint) ;D**


	2. Safe

**A/N:**

**Here's chapter 2! A big thank you to all who read and to all who reviewed! (Outcome5Cross, I'm looking at you) I will try to write chapters as fast as I can so we can get along with the story. Enjoy, and please, PLEASE leave a review!**

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><p><strong><span>Marta:<span>**

Apparently, muscle is heavier than fat.

This was a lesson I was rapidly learning as I groaned under Aaron's weight. Even with the help of the Filipino man, whose name I learned was Lauro, we were still struggling to carry Aaron to Lauro's fishing boat. We both supported Aaron's limp body between ours by each throwing one of his arms across our shoulders. It was in this way that we walked, as quickly as our position would allow and with Aaron's feet dragging behind us, towards the bright blue hull of the ship that Lauro had pointed out to me as his. Lauro's son followed along slightly behind.

With my heart in my throat, I kept expecting to see some local just around the corner who would shout out to ask just exactly "_what_ were we doing, dragging an unconscious, bleeding, American?" But to my utmost relief, except for a couple of arguing fishermen who were a ways off and paid no attention to us, the wharf was blissfully quiet.

At last we reached the boat, and Lauro and I shuffled down the deck, Aaron in tow, till we reached a small cabin where we laid Aaron down on a small cot inside. After rapidly spouting off a series of words in Tagalog that I did not understand, Lauro took his son by the hand and began to lead him out of the cabin.

An idea occurred to me. Hurriedly, I reached over and carefully slipped off of Aaron's wrist the gold watch that he had stolen from the security guard back at the lab.

"Wait!" I called when they were halfway out the door, and they did, stopping and turning around. "Thank you," I said simply, letting my eyes show all the gratitude I felt and offering the gold watch to Lauro.

For a second, he just looked at it in my hand, before stepping forward and taking it, giving me a slight nod. He then proceeded to explain to me, by use of sign language and very broken English, that we were going to push off. I nodded to signify that I understood, and, pushing his son out before him, Lauro walked out, closing the door to the cabin softly behind him.

As soon as the door was shut, I turned my attention upon Aaron.

With as light a touch as possible, I examined his wounds. The graze on his shoulder would need to be stitched up, but it was the wound on his thigh that made me nervous. I am no expert on gunshot wounds, but I know enough that the bullet needed to be removed—and that scared me. True, I am a doctor, but the term is applied loosely; as I said before, I am no expert on gunshot wounds.

Sliding the backpack off my shoulders where it had remained since Aaron had ordered me to put it there, I dumped its contents onto the bed and sifted through it till I found a small med kit. Ripping it open I found a scalpel, tweezers, a small flask of iodine, a needle, biodegradable suture thread, and a multitude of bandages. There were no anesthetics or painkillers, which made me even more nervous, as I would have to do it the old fashioned way. I could only hope that pain was dimmed when one is unconscious.

I decided to start on the wound to his thigh first, as it was the more serious of the two, so ripping the scalpel out of its packaging, I carefully cut out a neat square in the fabric of Aaron's jeans around the area of the wound.

Poised over him, tweezers and scalpel in hand, I hesitated. I looked over at his face, my eyes taking in every detail: the stubble on his jaw, the slightly parted lips, the relaxed eyelids that hid brilliant blue eyes made even sharper in color by how keenly he viewed everything, missing nothing. He wasn't overly handsome, with his messy sandy brown hair, lined face, and sharp jaw line, but his features were markedly masculine and seemed so to me as I viewed him.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, before beginning to probe through his flesh, looking for the bullet. I tried to be as gentle as possible, but even though unconscious, he still hissed and groaned in pain, unable to hold still while his fists clenching the bedspread so hard I worried they would tear. I wondered vaguely if, were he conscious, he would try to bite back the pain he felt on my account. I thought that he would.

After what seemed to me like hours, I finally fished out the bullet and was rewarded with the satisfying _clink_ it made as I dropped it into an empty water glass that was on a table by the bed.

I wished I had something to properly clean the wound, as I remembered that iodine should not be used in deep wounds, but seeing as my resources were limited I settled with simply wetting a bandage with it and cleaning the area around the wound.

Stitching it up was the next step, so I threaded the needle and began with as neat stitches as I could. I winced every time I threaded the needle through Aaron's skin, and every time he drew in a sharp breath.

When I had sewn his wound shut, I tied it off, using my teeth to cut the excess thread.

Comparatively, treating the graze on his shoulder was child's play.

Carefully sliding off Aaron's leather jacket and removing the stained grey shirt underneath, I poured a very small amount of iodine into the graze. He hissed between clenched teeth and stirred his shoulder, but as quickly as quickly as the pain started, it began to ebb and soon the liquid, and Aaron, were still. Using a bandage, I mopped up the drops that had trickled down his bare chest and dried the area around the wound. I then, once again, prepared the needle and suture thread, and stitched him up.

Leaning back I surveyed my work.

With my limited resources, I thought that I had done a pretty decent job, and any fault that there might have been in my work or for lack of proper medical equipment, I knew that Aaron's enhanced cellular repair would more than make up for it.

I suddenly heard the spluttering of an engine and felt the boat lurch under me. The boat was pulling away from the wharf and heading out to sea.

We were leaving Manila, and I felt instant relief.

My job was done.

I had gotten us to a relatively safe place, Aaron was treated (now resting quietly on the bed, his back propped up by pillows, still passed out), and we were on the move, which is what Aaron would have wanted.

I had made good of my promise, and now all I wanted to do was _sleep_.

Kicking off my shoes, and pulling out the rubber band in my hair so that it fell about my shoulders, I curled up on the bed beside Aaron. My back to him but not touching him, I closed my eyes and instantly fell asleep to the sound of his steady breathing.

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Sorry for such a short chapter, it was just the best place to stop. (And I think they both deserve a good rest) :P**

**We will get to see from Aaron's perspective in the next one, for all those who are patiently waiting.**

**Let me know what you think in the reviews! :D**

**Joke of the day:**

**"Spray mosquito repellent on a mosquito and laugh because now he wont have any friends!"**


	3. The Ghost and the Angel

**A/N:**

**Hey ya'll! Thank you all so much for reading! Sorry it took a little longer to post this chapter, I was really busy this week. Well, 3's here and 4 is on the way! Hopefully then ya'll can find out the plot that all of this is leading to. I'm so excited to hear your reaction! ;D Enjoy!**

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><p><strong><span>Aaron:<span>**

Everywhere my body tingles. Everywhere but my thigh and shoulder; in those places it burns. But its the good kind of pain, its like the sensation one gets when scratching an itch. Its the familiar feeling of my cells regenerating, of my red blood cells reproducing, of my body self-healing.

This is my first waking sensation, and with it comes the obvious knowledge that I have been injured.

My second is that I am not alone.

I sense the presence of someone else beside me before I even open my eyes, and my body tenses, the hairs rising on the back of my neck, in response. When my eyes do snap open, my mind on high alert and my body ready to react, I realize that the person beside me is not an enemy. That in itself, is such an unfamiliar experience that for a moment I am frozen, staring down at the form laying beside me.

It is Marta.

She is asleep, curled up against my side with one arm thrown over her head, and the other resting on my chest, while her dark hair, loose and tangled, is splayed about her like a halo.

Close physical contact is still new to me, especially with a woman, so for a time I cant move, cant breathe, as I stare down at her.

Let's face it, she's gorgeous—especially like this, with her hair all wild and her body relaxed and vulnerable—and I cant help but feel _some_ emotion as she lies beside me. Let's just call it _Protectiveness_.

I cant help but analyze how vulnerable she is right now, curled up asleep beside me. How she trusts me to protect and take care of her.

And I would. Will. Do.

Hell, if someone burst in the room right now I would _die_ before I let them touch her. And even as I am thinking that I'm kicking myself for being so distractible, for by this time I should have analyzed where we are, what our situation is, what escape routes and exits there are, and whether or not we will be needing to use them any time soon.

Snapping out it, I do just that.

We are in a small wooden cabin which, judging by its appearance and by the way I feel movement under me, lies on a boat.

As my instincts first told me, the cabin is empty except for Marta and I, and just outside a porthole, I can see the glimmer of stars. There is one door, which I see is unlocked, and the one porthole window that I already mentioned, facing out over the water. Though I strain my ears, and all I can hear is Marta's even breathing and the waves gently bumping against the hull of the boat; which is good because it means, for the moment, I am the only one awake and active, and that eliminates any immediate threat.

Thinking back, I try to recall the events leading up to the moment.

I remember the motorcycle chase in Manila, the crash, and Marta on the pavement beside me. I must have passed out after that because everything else is blank.

No, not everything.

Dimly I remember hearing Marta's voice: _"Will you help us?" "Please?"_

I assume that whoever she was talking to had agreed—a local fisherman, no doubt, judging by the fact that we were on a boat—and that she must feel that we were relatively safe as she had felt secure enough to fall asleep.

_Beside me_, I think, but quickly block that thought.

I trusted her instincts. For the moment, we were safe.

Next I turned my thoughts upon my own condition.

As I already mentioned, my body was tingling, which meant that I had been injured at some time and that my body was doing damage control. Looking down I saw my own skin gleaming through a square of missing fabric in my jeans. In the center of the square, exactly where I felt the burning sensation, there was a neat row of fresh stitches, and my mind flashed back to when I had gotten shot in the thigh.

_Marta._

Well, check that off the list.

Next, I became aware that my jacket and shirt had been removed and were lying folded at my feet, leaving my chest bare. Once more, where I feel the burning sensation, this time on my shoulder, I feel a line of fresh stitches.

Again,_ Marta_.

She must have somehow carried me here, and stitched up my wounds before finally dropping from exhaustion beside me on the bed. Which just leaves...

There. On the table beside me, in a small glass, is the bloodied bullet that was previously lodged in my thigh.

_Oh, Marta. Thank you._

Once more I looked down at her peaceful form, my eyes following a small strand of hair across her face that gently fluttered every time she softly breathed out from between slightly parted lips.

As I watched her, my heart felt another surge of..._Protectiveness_?

No, the word didn't seem to fit now.

I needed to move. Get out. Gage our situation not just on the inside the cabin. I needed know every inch of this boat we were on: the crew, supplies, location, escape routes, everything.

Moving with as slight movements as possible, I gently lifted Marta's arm off my chest and scooted off the bed.

Rising, I tested out my leg. It hurt and the tingling in that area tripled, but it was steady beneath me and I knew that I could walk, even run on it if I had to.

I changed into the only pants I had that were still intact which happened to be a pair of cargo pants, before walking to the door.

With my hand on the latch, I hesitated, before returning to the bedside and gently covering Marta with a blanket. She stirred slightly at the weight, before sighing contentedly and burrowing her face into the soft fabric.

I allowed myself the pleasure of a small smile, before exiting the cabin, closing the door noiselessly behind me.

It was a beautiful tropical night outside. A slight breeze was blowing, while calm waves gently rocked the boat under a cloudless starry sky and a bright full moon. But now was not the time to stop and smell the roses—I had a job to complete first, and wouldn't be at ease till it was done.

Years of training had taught me to be invisible, to not exist, to leave no trace behind me, and to walk among thousands without warranting a second glance or a passing thought. Years of training had taught me to be a ghost, and that night, I was one.

Slowly, methodically, I covered every _inch_ of the double-decker fishing boat we were on, memorizing and mapping it out in my head. Slowly, methodically, I traversed the bowels of the boat until all its few secrets were revealed to me—until I _knew_.

I knew that if I needed a gun, I would find a Walther P22 pistol hidden under the shelf in the control room. I knew that the best place to hide, should we be boarded, would be under the false floor in the water heater closet. I knew that the boat was stocked with enough supplies to last us a week. I knew that our current location was somewhere near Roxas. And I knew that the boat belonged to a Lauro Barengas, a local fisherman with a wife and two kids who lived in Zamboanga.

The crew consisted merely of Lauro, his small son, and another man whose name I did not know but made an educated guess that he was Lauro's brother. The sight of the gold watch on Lauro's wrist, the same that I had stolen off of the security guard back at the lab and had been previously wearing before I passed out, did not escape me when I went through the cabin holding the snoring crew. For a moment, I was puzzled by this, but then decided on the conclusion that Marta must have given it to him.

I had to hand it to her: intentional or not, she couldn't have picked a better place. Lauro was a family man, with modest to low means, which meant that his sympathy could be easily played upon and his tongue kept silent and content with the right amount of incentive pay. His brother I was less sure about, as I knew next to nothing about him, but he seemed an honest fellow and I wasn't very concerned. Still, I would make a point to strike up a conversation with him in the morning. The boat itself as a mode of transportation was ideal in our situation as it was inconspicuous and made us a harder target to find. After all, what's one boat on the ocean among thousands? But most importantly, we were moving, at a constant rate, away from Manila.

The task I had set out for myself completed, I moved silently back to the cabin given to Marta and I. Pausing at the door, I listened. Marta's steady breathing could still be heard inside.

Maybe it was the fact that my leg was beginning to tingle again, or maybe it was the effect of the pristine tropical night outside, in any case, I didn't want to return to the dark cabin. So, turning away from the door and walking to the railing, I leaned my weight up against it and looked out at the starry horizon.

I don't know how long I stood there, allowing my mind to be blissfully blank as I tried to spy out constellations I knew and make up ones of my own, when I sensed someone behind me. Don't ask me how, but as soon as I became aware of that someone behind me, I knew, without turning, that it was Marta. I wish I could say that it was because of something clever, like I sensed the change in the air patterns around me, or smelled the shampoo in her hair, but that's just not the truth. The truth is that I just knew _instinctually_ that it was her. And it was that instinctual recognition that saved her from my usual instinctual reaction to slam her bodily into the wall and press a knife to her throat.

"I don't know how you do it," she says behind me, confirming what I already knew.

"Do what?" I ask, calmly turning to face her. She stands about four feet away from me, her hands slowly moving up and down over her arms in a stimulating motion, while her eyes are watching my face with a curious expression in them. Her skin, made pale in the moonlight, gleams like ivory in the night, and her dark hair falls about her shoulders in tangled curls, making her look like some ethereal angel under the stars.

"Know its me," she explains. "I wasn't making a sound; I know because I was trying not to."

I gave a dry laugh. "That might not be the smartest thing to do."

She smiled and looked down at her feet. "You didn't answer my question," she responded, looking up at me again with a shy glance.

I shrugged. "I don't know, I just do. How did you know that I did?"

Now it was her turn to shrug, and she came to stand beside me at the railing. "Your back tensed," she said simply. I felt a slight pang and wondered how she might interpret that. I suddenly felt a need to please her. "I'll make something of you yet," I said with a grin, bumping her with my shoulder. She smiled at the complement, for that's what I meant it to be, and we both looked out over the water and up at the stars.

"How's the leg?" she asked after a moment of silence. "The leg" was currently tingling so much it was all I could do to keep it from twitching spastically, while the steady burn actually felt like fire was licking my flesh—it hadn't taken the night's work very well. "It's um, its healing." I said, noncommittally.

_I'll say._

Sometimes I think healing naturally is better, but that thought always vanishes when three days later I'm moving around like nothing happened.

My tone and hesitation made her look up sharply and analyze my face. One glance and she knew.

She breathed a laugh. "I bet!"

After all, she was the doctor.

"Thank you," I say suddenly serious. "For what you did. You saved both of our lives, and—" I duck my head demanding that she look into my eyes, "you took care of me."

She dropped her eyes to her hands on the rail, embarrassed at the gratitude I let her see in mine.

"You would have done the same for me," she replied softly. Its true, but it still doesn't dim how thankful I am to her.

"What happened after I passed out?" I asked, and she began to tell me everything that occurred, with me interrupting occasionally to grill her on details.

"... I fell asleep after I stitched you up, and the rest you know." She said it so simply, so humbly, as if it was nothing.

_You spent two hours fishing a bullet out of my thigh and sewing me up, even though you were ready to drop from exhaustion, _I think.

"Did you give Lauro the watch?" I asked suddenly.

She started at the fact that I knew his name as she had not told me yet.

"Yes! How did you—", but she stopped herself, at looked at me sharply as realization dawned. "You went through the boat, didn't you?"

I said nothing and looked out over the water.

"You cant just go looking through peoples lives like that!" She cried, her voice accusing.

"I needed to know that they were safe! That _we_ were safe!" I responded, feeling defensive. "And they are—we are. It's good—_you_ did good." I nodded to prove a point, and once more looked out over the water. Beside me, I could hear her sigh as she ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry," she said softly, bumping into me, "you're right. It's just...what do we do now?"

That is the question of the day, and one that has been nagging at the back of my mind. The truth is: I don't know, and that could very well get us killed.

"We stay together," I say, and take her hand.

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Review for me? I love seeing how many people read this, but I want reviews! ;P Let me know how I am doing! Are you even a little curious to see where this goes? And how and when will they meet/team up with Jason Bourne? Review, review, review! ;D**

**Joke of the Day:**

**"If you are ever feeling sad, just think of a T-Rex making a bed."**


	4. To Be Lost

**A/N:**

**A HUGE "Thank you" to all of you who followed, favorited, and reviewed my story! (Outcome5Cross, Soulonefail, cdub77, kaaca, and Akrosin) You guys literally made my week! :D**

**Thanks also to all of y'all who read it. Even though you haven't left reviews, (Oh, but please do!) its still a great encouragement to me to see how many people read it.**

**I figured I'd treat y'all to an extra long chapter, and now finally we are getting into the plot. :) Enjoy, and tell me what you think!**

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><p><strong><span>Aaron:<span>**

That night, after our initial conversation, Marta and I stood side by side on the boat deck for a long time afterwards, leaning our weight against the railing and looking up at the stars. We talked little, only breaking the silence to point out constellations that we had found, or thought resembled something.

It was the most _normal_ thing I had done in three years.

After what seemed like, and probably was, hours, Marta and I both, in silent agreement, turned away from the railing and went back inside our cabin. There was some debate over who should sleep in the bed. Marta argued that I should take it as I was injured while she slept on the floor, but there was no way in my mind that that was _ever_ going to happen. Just the thought of her sleeping on the hard wood floor while I was in a soft bed, made my teeth clench.

The debate went on for some minutes, but she finally shut up when I promptly threw the pillow in her face and laid down on the floor beside the bed, using my jacket as a pillow and closing my eyes.

The silence in the cabin was heavy in that moment, as she stood motionless, clutching to her chest the pillow I had tossed to her, or, more accurately, _at_ her. But then she sighed, and I heard the bed creak as she climbed into it. While I was enjoying a small triumphant smirk in the silence that followed, I was surprised by a blanket dropping over the side of the bed and landing on top of me.

"Goodnight, Aaron," came Marta's soft whisper.

Smiling to myself, I accepted her peace offering and draped it over me, letting its warmth seep into my body. If I was honest with myself, the floor sucked and my leg hurt like hell, but this was miles better than the alternative.

"Goodnight, Marta," I whispered back.

_Sleep well_, I thought.

* * *

><p>I woke up in the morning on the hard wood floor, to the creaking of the bed. My eyes snapped awake, to see Marta's head peeking out from over the edge of the bed. Her eyes widened, and she blushed as she realized that I had caught her in the act of watching me sleep.<p>

I smiled and tilted my head towards her. "Hey," I laughed.

Her blush crimsoned.

"Hi," she rejoined with a shy smile and a nervous chuckle, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm— I'm sorry. I just— I just woke up, and um, I wondered if you were still asleep."

"Well, I'm not now!" I laughed again.

_Note to Self: A flustered Marta was drop-dead adorable._

"Yeaaah," she laughed, raising her eyebrows, unconsciously freeing the strand of hair again and winding it around her finger. "How's the leg?" she asked quickly, looking at me with soft hazel eyes.

"It's good," I answered, nodding and sitting up, making Marta roll back onto her heels. "Yeah, its good. It still tingles but the burn's gone, if you know what I mean." I left out the part where it throbbed from my midnight tour.

She nodded, and her eyes mechanically dropped down to my thigh, now covered up with the cargo pants I had put on during the night.

"Can I— can I see it?"

"Yeah! Yeah, sure." I got up from the floor and took a seat on the bed next to her, rolling up my pant leg till the stitches could be seen.

She scooted forward and bent over me, immediately transforming into the doctor. I watched her face with amusement as she gently probed the area on my thigh, speaking to herself under her breath, and muttering medical terms that I didn't understand.

"Your cellular repair is amazing!" she said, sitting back on her heels again and looking up at me her eyes shining. "Its been just twenty-two hours since you were wounded, and already your macrophages cells have replaced your Polymorphonuclear neutrophils and is transferring into the proliferative phase."

I could only blink.

"Is that a good thing?" I asked.

She laughed—a deep, melodious sound—throwing back her head and closing her eyes. It was highly contagious, and I couldn't help but smile as I watched her.

"Yes," she said, still chuckling with a wide grin on her face. "Yes, it's a very good thing. As far a healing goes, you're at least three days ahead of schedule."

I small knock sounded on the door and I tensed. Signaling Marta to be quiet, I hurriedly stood, slipped my gun—that had been on the floor beside me where I had slept—into the back of my waistband, and walked to the door.

I opened it just enough for my face to show, and looked down upon the small form of Lauro's son.

"_Aking__ama Sinabi sa akin na sabihin mo na ang almusal ay handa na kung nais mong sumali sa amin." _the boy spouted off in a quick succession of Filipino. They hadn't really covered the language in depth during training, but I had picked up what little they did cover pretty quickly, and call it fate or little blue pills, but I had never really forgotten it.

I turned my head to see Marta still seated cross-legged on the bed, looking at me with a confused, yet expectant look. She, on the other hand, did not understand the language.

"They're inviting us to eat breakfast with them." I explained.

She brightened. "Can we? I'm starving!"

I frowned, thinking it over. I was hungry too, it being a full day since I had eaten last, and breakfast sounded heavenly right now. I did need to speak with Lauro and his brother to settle a few things like destination and a suitable fee, however, the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a conversation I couldn't control—having to lie when asked personal questions that always followed sharing a meal with a stranger. My eyes met Marta's, hers slightly hopeful. I knew for a fact that she would submit to whatever I decided without complaint.

I turned back to the expectant boy.

_"Sabihin sa iyong__ama "salamat sa iyo". Darating kami." _I answered. The boy brightened, and casting a curious glance into what little of the room could be seen between my legs, darted away. I watched him round the corner and disappear before closing the door.

"We're going." was all I said, and Marta smiled and started up off the bed.

We both got ready: Marta combing back her hair with her fingers and pulling it back into a ponytail, and myself putting on my stained shirt and covering it with my less visibly dirty jacket. I kept my gun in the back of my waistband, now hidden by my shirt and jacket, and felt reassured by its familiar cold metal weight.

"Ready?" I asked, after we had both laced on our shoes. She nodded, and I held the door for her as we exited the cabin. "Leave the talking to me." I said over my shoulder, as I took the lead to the mess hall.

Lauro was just laying down the last steaming plate of food when we arrived, and we were hospitably greeted by him and his brother, and ushered into seats drawn back for us by his son. As soon as we were all comfortable, the meal began, and myself and Marta's beyond hungry stomachs were quickly gratified with the delicious breakfast prepared for us. At first the mood was a little awkward, even suspicious on Lauro's brother's part, but as Lauro dutifully kept the conversation going and I encouraged him with witty banter, the mood quickly grew more friendly and lighthearted.

One of my strengths, highlighted in training and perfected to an art in the field, was that I could talk myself in an out of just about any and every situation. Make eye contact and hold it. Flash a smile. Be sincere and confidant. Maybe make more of a statement by getting into their space a little, just enough to make them think twice about you: like leaning casually up against their desk, for example.

Not to brag or anything, but I could have you cleaning out my showers before you even knew what was happening. I had memorized all the elicitation tactics like one memorizes the Drivers Manual, and they were just as much second nature to me as stopping at a red light. I could play the smooth talking people-person all right, even though in reality I'm about as introverted as you can get.

That's who I was this morning, surprising even Marta by my sharp wit, effortless banter, and lively conversation. She was staring at me now, a faint smile about her lips, her eyes shining with amazement and amusement at the joke I just cracked, erupting the entire table into a burst of laughter. I could feel her eyes on me, daring me to look at her, but I ignored it.

I needed Lauro and his family to like me, to like_ us—_to gain their trust. I needed to play on their emotions to ensure Marta and I's safety.

The conversation itself was pretty casual. Lauro, for some strange reason, avoided asking for any explanation on why he found us like he did: writhing on the pavement after a motorcycle crash, riddled with gunshot wounds, and a mangled body lying just feet away from us. He stuck to the ordinary guest-over-for-dinner topics, and talked lively of mundane things. Any of the few questions that were asked about our history, I was easily able to parry them to his satisfaction without actually revealing too much about ourselves.

The language barrier wasn't really a problem—for me at least. Lauro was able to speak conversationally in very broken English, and any phrases he did stumble over I knew in Tagalog. His brother knew no English and spoke solely in Tagalog to me. Poor Marta could only follow the conversation when we spoke in English, and then try to fill in the missing pieces when we did not. To Lauro's credit, he would occasionally translate his brothers words into English for what I knew to be Marta's sake, though he would say them to no one in particular.

On the whole, the meal passed comfortably, and at its finality I felt that my personal mission to gain Lauro and his brother's trust had been achieved.

While Marta helped wash the dishes and clean up, I stepped out to talk with Lauro and we discussed the logistics of our passage on the boat. We agreed that Marta and I would stay with them till they reached their final destination in Zamboanga, a full two days sail away. After assuring Lauro that we would be no trouble (a promise that I could only hope to live up to) and that as soon as we docked in Zamboanga we would be gone, I pressed a wad of cash into his hand. At first he tried to refuse it, but after I insisted, he accepted it with a grateful handshake. He was an honest man, and I prayed that Marta and I's presence on his boat would bring him no trouble.

We parted on the best of terms, and very soon the ship was on its way. Marta and I met coming down the stairway.

"Is everything settled?" She asked, as she descended down the metal spiral staircase two steps in front of me.

"Yeah," I answered, "We'll stay with them for two more days and then get off at Zamboanga."

"Two days?" she said stopping in the middle of the staircase and turning around to face me, delighted at the fact of staying in one place for so long.

"Two days." I confirmed with a smile and looking down at her, then added: "So enjoy it."

She gave a short, happy laugh and then turned to descend the stairs again. But the metal stair had been made slick by a pool of sea water that had gathered on it, and when Marta stepped on it her foot slipped and she stumbled. I caught her about the waist with my left arm before she could fall, steadying myself with my right on the railing. I felt something tear in my shoulder and had to bite my lip against the searing pain that I suddenly felt in that area.

"You okay?" I asked, trying to ignore the fact that my shoulder suddenly felt very hot.

She blinked, her brain still trying to compute what happened. "Yeah," she gasped, and blushed as she became aware of my arm about her waist and how close we were to each other.

Realizing this myself, I quickly steadied her and then drew back.

Her eyes, that had been locked on my face since I had caught her, now were drawn away as something caught her attention.

"Your shoulder!" She cried, her eyes darkening with worry. I glanced down at the culprit, and noticed a blossoming scarlet stain.

"Ah crap," I muttered. "I must have torn the stitches."

She pursed her lips and frowned at the rapidly budding red posy on my shoulder, before taking my hand and stolidly leading me away.

"What are you doing?" I asked, following her obediently.

"I'm going to patch you up again." she said firmly. She led me back to our cabin and pushed me inside, closing the door.

"Take it off," she said, motioning to my shirt as she passed by to dig through the backpack on the bed.

Grabbing the hem, I lifted it up over my head in one fluid movement, tossing the shirt on the bed beside Marta and waiting. She glanced at it as it fell, before turning to me with a small flask of iodine in on hand and a roll of bandages in the other. I admit that I was watching her closely for a reaction, and I caught the quick pass-over her eyes did of me standing before her shirtless, before they focused on my shoulder.

"Sit," she ordered, tilting her head towards the bed.

I obeyed, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, smirking at her commanding tone and air.

She came to stand in front of me, dabbing iodine on one of the bandages. Placing one hand on my neck, she used the other to gently clean the now open wound on my shoulder. It was such a familiar position, I don't know why my skin tingled where she touched it.

Leaning my head against the hand that supported it, I gave her more room to work. "Just like old times, eh doc?" I murmured softly, glancing up at her. She said nothing, keeping her eyes on her work, as she tossed the iodine and bloodstained bandage and prepared a long one to wrap around my body crossways.

I wondered why she was acting so _frigid_ all of a sudden. As for me, I was feeling a little mischievous.

"Except this time," I continued, whispering into her ear as she bent forward to wrap the bandage around me, her arms threading under my arm and by my neck. "This time, there are no cameras."

For an instant she froze, her fingers faltering, but then in the next she continued as if nothing happened; the change was so slight I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it.

"You still make an attractive appearance though."

I had gone too far.

She reared back, her eyes glaring. "Are you done?" she challenged hotly.

I don't know where this teasing mood came from, but I was amused at the effect it had upon her.

"No." I smirked, coolly staring into her flaming eyes.

"Well isn't that a shame," she shot back, tying off the bandage with a wrench that made me wince. "Because I am." And with that she roughly threw the bandages back into the backpack and walked out, slamming the door.

I let out the laugh that I had been holding and fell back on the bed.

What the hell was I thinking?

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><p>After apologizing multiple times and promising that it wouldn't happen again, Marta finally forgave me, and two hours later I had succeeded in melting the ice between us and we were chatting like nothing had happened.<p>

"I like them," Marta said with a small smile, as we watched Lauro's small son and brother work the nets below while Lauro steered the boat. We were once again side-by-side, leaning against the railing in a déjà vu moment.

I nodded. "You couldn't have picked a better place."

She bent her head and I guessed what she was thinking. "Don't you dare correct me," I warned quickly, as she opened her mouth to speak. She shut it again and smiled, blushing.

"Well," she said, after a moment of contented silence as we stared out at the ocean and the lush shoreline we were sticking to. "I'm going to go explore the boat, since you already seem to have it memorized." This last part was said with a mischievous lip accompanied by a shoulder bump. I laughed, and returned the gesture.

"I'd stay away from the Head if I were you. I don't think it quite comes up to your sterile laboratory requirements."

She snorted. "What is that? Third door to the left?"

"Sixth to the right." I corrected with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes and turned away from the railing, and I turned my head to watch her back as she walked away.

Left to my own thoughts, I began to think about what our next move should be once we got off at Zamboanga. We would keep moving, that was for sure. But to where? To what end? I needed to look at our options. I needed a map.

Turning away from the railing, I hailed the small boy and waited while he climbed up.

_"Mayroon ka bang isang mapa maaari kong gamitin?" _I asked him.

He nodded and then ran off to fetch the map I had requested.

While I waited, I made my way down to a table set up under an old sailcloth awning where I could easily spread out the map. As I was taking a seat, the boy reappeared carrying a rolled up map, a compass, and any other nautical tools I might need to plot a point on the map. Thanking him, I took the map and unrolled it, using the tools the pin the corners to the table. My eyes found Zamboanga and then wandered from there, seeking out possibilities.

A shadow fell over me, and looking up I saw Marta smiling down on me.

"Hey," she said, taking a seat beside me.

"Hey," I answered, returning her smile before turning back to the map.

She glanced at it. "Are we lost?" she asked, her eyes on my face.

"No. I'm just looking at our options."

Her eyes never left my face. "Oh. I was kinda hoping we were lost."

I looked up at this and met gorgeous hazel eyes. She was smiling. Watching me. Hoping.

_Lost with Marta_, the idea was a pleasant one. I allowed myself to imagine it, exploring the possibilities. After all, we did have two days.

Before I could change my mind, I rolled up the map and turned to Marta with a smile. For a moment she could only beam at me, then:

"What's your favorite color?"

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><p>For that whole day we were Lost.<p>

We passed the lazy hours lounging in the sun, helping Lauro with the nets, and _talking_. I had never talked so much in my whole life—nor enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. I learned more about Marta in that one day, than anyone else would probably learn in a month. When night came, a little too soon for both of us, we stayed up late and stared up at the stars like the night before. I had never felt so content in my life, so _happy._

But when I woke up in the morning on the hard wood floor, I knew that those blissful moments were over, and it was time to step back into reality.

"Marta," I began hesitantly, as we were sitting together under the awning once more eating breakfast. Lauro and his brother were busy with the nets on the other side of the boat and it was just her and I. She looked up at me, guessing by my tone what was coming. "As much as I enjoyed yesterday—it cant last. We dock at Zamboanga tomorrow morning, and we need a plan."

She nodded and looked down at her food, playing with it with her fork. "I knew it wouldn't last," she whispered. "It was just nice to pretend like it would, you know?"

I too looked down at my plate. I suddenly felt like a horrible person.

She set down her fork in a business-like way and looked up at me. "So what _is_ our plan?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know. _Yet_. I just—" I frowned and looked across at her. "I don't want to keep running. And its not just about us anymore. I'll bet anything that there are others, just like you and me, who are just trying to stay alive."

She looked at me sharply, her eyes searching my face. "Are you thinking of—" She broke off before she finished; she didn't have to, we both knew what she meant. Our eyes met and I let her see my answer in mine. She gave a short, incredulous laugh, running a hand through her hair. "So we take Rick Byer by the teeth, huh? How?"

"How else?" I answered evenly. "Through the media."

"But you said yourself that it wouldn't work!"

My mind flashed back to that first day we went on the run.

_But ask yourself this: could you ever go fast enough, and loud enough, that they would be too afraid to finish what they started? _I had said that, in a temper I'm not proud of, but it was true.

"By yourself you stood no chance, but together..."

"So what? We just walk to a newsroom and tell them our story?" she asked incredulous, not daring to believe it was that simple.

"No. That would be too easy for Byer to shut down. It's their word against ours: an imbecile Private First Class and his traumatized doctor." I said bitterly. "Sure, it would cause some flare up, but this cant just be some scandal on the back of_ People_ magazine. No, if we really want to shut them down, there has to be no doubt in the public's mind that what we're saying is true. What we really need is _evidence_."

"Evidence..." she repeated, parroting my words as she thought. "Well you yourself are a living testimony of what they've done. I could get a blood sample."

"That's good, but it's not enough." I frowned, deep in thought. "What about the man in Manila? The one you—the one who tried to kill us?" I corrected swiftly as Marta winced. "Could you get a blood sample from him?"

She thought about it. "Well, he was definitely enhanced, that much is for certain, but I don't remember ever seeing him at the lab."

I looked up sharply at her. This was news to me. "He's not apart of Outcome?"

She frowned, the thought had never occurred to her. "It's highly unlikely; I was responsible for the check-ups of all the Outcome agents."

I stood up quickly and began to pace. "So there is another program." I muttered darkly.

_Of course there was._

I was stupid to think that they would stop at Outcome. Of course they would _improve_ their creation. That meant that there was a whole program of others out there who were stronger than me, smarter than me, and who were all taxed with the mission to silence me and Marta. The last one almost killed me. How long could I keep it up? How long could I protect her?

Stopping in my pacing, I ran a hand through my hair. "We need that blood sample. And Chems too—do you think he'd have Chems?"

She nodded. "I think so. Like you said, they would want to keep him on a leash. But Aaron, how are we going to get all this? We left that man dead on the pavement in Manila two days ago!"

I placed both my hands on the table and let my head hang as I thought. Suddenly I had it and whipped my head up. "Byer wont touch the body, not with all the publicity—too many people saw what happened, and he's already on the spot. That means the body is probably lying in a morgue somewhere, with all the personal effects. Once we land in Zamboanga, we trace back to Manila using a different route, and find it. We get in, grab the Chems and a blood sample, and get out."

Our eyes met. She looked tired, but her mouth was set in a determined line. "I'll follow you where ever you go."

The statement was simply said, but it made my heart stop, and my hand compulsively reached out for hers, giving it a squeeze before I continued my pacing.

Something else was nagging at my mind. A duty. A secret. A name.

"There's something else," I said softly, making Marta look up at me. "If we're really going to do this, we need Jason Bourne."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Any of you excited yet? ;D**

**We might get some action in the next chapter!**


	5. A Matching Set

**A/N:**

**Ahhhh! Sorry it took me so long to update, friends! It was exams week! (Oh, Joy! :P But I passed with all A's, so its all good)**

**A HUGE thank you to all of you who reviewed, followed, and favorited me! You guys are amazing! Keep it up!**

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><p><strong><span>Marta:<span>**

_Jason Bourne_.

The name is familiar, like it should mean something, but I cant place it.

_Jason Bourne_.

A spark of recognition ignites. A face immerges. A glimpse of a paper. A news broadcast.

"Jason Bourne..." I repeat. Aaron is watching me, his arms folded, his intense blue eyes like a storm about to break, staring into mine, trying to see through me and read my thoughts. As far as I know, he can.

"You know him?" he asks.

I don't know him, but I know enough to know that he is important.

It all started with a glimpse of a file—something that I never should have seen. A man came into the lab one day armed with the promise of our full cooperation and a thousand questions on the research we were doing in the lab and the results it had in Outcome. The man had with him a file, that he carried under his arm and referred to occasionally—it was when passing through the tight hallways of the lab, brushing up against me as he followed a doctor in a spotless lab coat, that he dropped it. In the flurry of papers that followed as both he and I scrambled to pick up the pages dropped, one caught my eye. On it was the thumbnail sized, unsmiling face of an otherwise handsome man, staring back at me with stormy grey eyes.

_Name: Jason Bourne_

_Program: Treadstone_

_Status: Not Operational—Location Unknown—Unresponsive to Directive_

_Potential Candidate for Outcome_

That was all I could read before the paper was roughly snatched from my hands, and replaced into its file. It was the glare I received from the man, that really made me never forget the incident: cold pale eyes boring into mine. Eyes that had seen death. Eyes that had killed. Eyes that now threatened me. He didn't speak, as he got up and walked away. He didn't have to—the message was clear. And as he left me, crouching on the sterile white floors, still frozen in place, I wondered why I felt so cold.

The second time I had heard the name was four days ago in the airport while I was waiting at the gate for the flight to Manila, sticking close to a woman with three kids per Aaron's instructions. There was a large flat screen mounted up above me playing a nonstop stream of News. My eyes drifted over to it.

_"The FBI this morning confirmed reports that Dr. Albert Hirsch died of heart failure in a Washington, D. C. hotel." _The female reporter stated.

_"Dr. Hirsch had been expected to testify yesterday before a Senate Intelligence committee. That select committee is investigating links between a troubled CIA program known as Treadstone and this man, Jason Bourne." _My attention was instantly arrested by the mention of the words that had set me wondering for weeks. A picture flashed on the screen, and I once more looked into the stormy grey eyes and face of the man I had seen on the file.

_"Police and federal officials are searching for Bourne in connection with recent shootings in New York and in London. Dr. Hirsch had been cooperating with the Justice Department and was in protective custody at the time of the incident. A committee spokesman told reporters last night that the hearings will be postponed temporarily as they evaluate the loss of Doctor. And now a heartwarming story of a man who..." _The picture that had captured my gaze disappeared, and the story moved on to another, and at that moment the announcement that my flight was now boarding came in over the loud speaker.

"I don't know him," I said quietly, looking up at Aaron and breaking the short silence that had developed between us as I relived the past. "But I've heard of him. Who is he?"

And Aaron explained.

He told me about Treadstone, how the program, initially created with good intentions, soured and became corrupt, its resources used for unsanctioned assassinations and personal gain. He told me about how Jason Bourne was one of the first to join, after enduring months of torturous training and moral desensitization. He told me how Bourne went MIA while attempting to assassinate an African dictator, only to resurface later with apparent amnesia. Bourne started digging, curious about the past that he couldn't remember, and Treadstone got nervous. After not responding to Treadstone's "invitations" to return to the program, it was feared that Bourne had gone rouge and was now working on his own therefore making him a liability. A series of, so far unsuccessful, attempts had been made on his life, accidentally killing his girlfriend in the process, and fueling Bourne's quest for the truth and making Treadstone vulnerable to exposure. With the help of a woman named Pamela Landy, Bourne finally discovered who he was, and what Treadstone was, now upgraded to a program called Blackbrier, while Landy leaked the classified information of Treadstone and Blackbrier's existence to the press.

"Last I heard," Aaron concluded casually, while I tried to absorb and make sense of the flood of information. "Bourne was apparently shot as he leapt off of a 10 story roof into the East River."

"His body, however," he quickly added at the look on my face, "was never found. Which is slang in the spy world for "he's not dead". Believe me, you would be surprised at how many times I have faked my own death."

_That_ caught my attention, but Aaron was already moving on.

"They've recently opened up an investigation and Senate hearing on Treadstone, which is what prompted Byer to shut down Outcome in case that program also was discovered."

"So," I began, speaking slowly, cautiously picking my way through my words. "You want Jason Bourne for what he knows about the programs and the corrupt officials inside—for his testimony as more evidence?"

Aaron nodded, standing up once again and resuming his pacing. "Among other things, yes. We just need to find him..." he trailed off, lost in his own thoughts. He suddenly stopped and turned to me. "You said earlier that you had heard of him?"

"Twice," I said, and told him about the file and news broadcast.

He frowned. "So they were going to make him Outcome?"

I nodded. "Initially I believe that was the plan, but if what you have told me is true, then he must have become to much of a threat to keep him alive."

We both were silent, Aaron once more pacing the deck line, and myself staring absentmindedly at my abandoned plate.

It was all so incredible; like something out of a movie. I couldn't believe that this was now my life. I thought back to Jason Bourne's history, wondering how someone could live like that, how Aaron could live like that. But then again, hadn't both of their hands had been forced?

_His girlfriend, Marie St. Jacques, was killed with a bullet meant for Bourne._ Aaron had said that, and my heart felt pity for..._Wait a second!_ How did _Aaron_ know that?!

"Aaron," I said suddenly, jerking my head up to look at him. He stopped pacing, and seemed to tense at my tone, as if he knew what was coming. "How do you know all this about Bourne?"

He froze, his back to me, and dropped his head to stare at his feet, while the tiniest sigh escaped him, so quiet I wondered if I had imagined it.

"Marta..." he whispered, like a groan, voicing both an apology and a plead for silence in my name.

He didn't answer.

* * *

><p>"You need to know how to defend yourself." Aaron voiced close behind me, making me jump as I did not hear him.<p>

I had been standing alone at the railing outside of our cabin, staring angrily out over the water, thinking over Aaron's refusal to tell me why he knew so much about Bourne. What was there to hide? Didn't he trust me? I thought we were past keeping secrets from each other!

I had worked myself into quite the self-injustice fit, when Aaron surprised me. "We pull into Zamboanga in the morning and I need to know that..." he hesitated, "that you're not helpless."

_Well, thanks!_ I thought bitterly, though a part of me knew that he was right. In a world where my life was threatened at every moment, I at least needed to increase my chances. I looked up at Aaron. His eyes were avoiding mine, his mouth set in a hard line and his jaw firm, and in the way he held himself seemed to command more of a presence, making him seem taller and more imposing.

There was a distance between us now, and while I brooded, he had reverted to his cold calculating self to compensate.

An instinct told me that it was all for my benefit: he wouldn't answer me, I held a grudge against him for it, and now he distanced himself to spare me any awkwardness, giving me the freedom to forgive him or not. He knew I was hurt by his action, and he was sorry for that, but for some reason he refused to tell me all the same. If I chose to hold a grudge, he understood, and wouldn't pressure me.

_Damn it_, _even when we fight he's selfless._

"Fine," I snapped, a little more short and terse then I had meant it.

He nodded, still not looking at me. "Meet me here after lunch." was all he said, before walking away.

I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and turned back to the railing.

It wasn't right. _We_ shouldn't be like this. He saved my life, I saved his; we were a team, a matching set. To hell with my feelings, anything and everything that Aaron does, he does for a reason, and I know for a fact that he thinks more about my safety and comfort than his own.

"Aaron!" I cried out suddenly, whirling around. He stopped at the verge of rounding the corner and turned, looking at me expectantly. I suddenly felt very hot. "I—If you choose not to tell me something, I know you have a reason, and—well, I trust you." It was out.

Something I couldn't recognize flashed into his eyes, and his face softened. His eyes met mine, and he nodded, before disappearing around the corner.

* * *

><p>Immediately after lunch under the awning, Aaron and I met back on the deck outside of our cabin, and my Self-Defense lesson began.<p>

"Rule number one," Aaron began, standing before me, "is that whenever you are in a fight, you always want to be careful no to break the little bones in your hand. It's not like in the movies where you can punch a guy in the face eight times and not feel a thing. For you, your best weapon would be the bone on your forearm, right here." He said, and placed a firm hand on the spot on my arm. "It's hard, and in a place that will hurt less, but give you more power."

"So, you weigh, what? 125 lbs.?" he asked, sizing me up in a quick glance.

"128." I corrected, blushing. It was just like Aaron to estimate my weight almost exactly, but with a number that was flatteringly lower.

"128 then," he said continuing, "Now divide that number by three, and you get what, roughly 42 lbs? If you can put one third of your body weight into your swing, that's 42 pounds of force striking your opponent through the bone of your forearm. Learn how to put in half of your body weight: that's 64 pounds of force. One solid hit like that in the head and you can take down a full grown man."

_A _normal_ full grown man,_ I thought.

"Now," Aaron began, assuming a fighting stance. "You're going to hold your arms up like this: close to your body, protecting your vitals, but ready to strike."

I mimicked his stance, holding up my arms like he demonstrated, with my legs slightly spread, one more in front of the other, and my knees bent.

"Good." He said, nodding. "Now you're going to strike like this." And he showed me, three times. The first time he moved like lightning, striking the air with his forearm, with what I knew had to be perfect form, and even though he was hitting into thin air, you could see the power behind it. The second and third time, he did it slower so that I could see every shift and movement: his left arm remained in its defensive position close to his body, while his right elbow came up, his weight shifted from his back foot to his front and into his arm as he struck out with it, turning his body slightly. I noted that all was done while keeping a tight core, with everything close and controlled.

"Now it's your turn," Aaron said, dropping the fighting stance and standing before me, yet still tense and ready like a loaded spring. "Hit me." he motioned, like it was nothing.

"Excuse me?"

"Hit me!" He insisted.

I raised an eyebrow, but resumed the fighting stance all the same. I gave him a look to prepare him, and then, trying to duplicate Aaron's movements as best as I could, I swung at him with my forearm.

His hand came up so fast, I felt it before I saw it, latching onto my wrist and completely deadening the momentum, stopping my arm in mid swing inches away from his face.

He didn't even blink.

"Again," he ordered, releasing my arm. "And harder this time. Put your weight into it."

I admit that I was holding back as I didn't really want to hit him, much less hurt him, but now that I knew what was coming, I was ready to commit a little more.

I drew back, once more into position, and then swung. Again, Aaron caught my arm a millisecond before it would have cracked into his jaw, and didn't even flinch. "That was better. Do it again." I did.

"Again."

"Again."

"Again."

I was getting into a pattern, my attacks becoming faster and stronger as I became more familiar with the movements. On one particular hit, I focused on fuelling all of my weight and power into my arm as I swung, and this time when Aaron's hand snapped up to grab it, he had only deadened some of its momentum, before it slipped out of his grasp, connecting squarely with his jaw.

He made a sound and stumbled back, his hands rising to his face.

_What did I just do?_

"Aaron!" I cried, instantly rushing to him. "Are you alright? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to—" Before I could say another word, or even think to react, Aaron had grabbed my wrist, spun me around, placed a leg up against the back of my kneecap, an arm across my neck, and had me pinned in an effective hold.

"Lesson number two:" he whispered, his lips inches away from my ear, his breath tickling my neck and sending chills down my spine. "Never let your guard down. _Especially_ when you think your opponent is down." He chuckled, and stretched his jaw. "That _was_ a hell of a hit though."

I was trapped, my back pressed against Aaron's chest, my head drawn back by the firm but not restricting arm he had around my neck, and my wrist twisted behind me and held fast by him in a not uncomfortable position, but that could all change with a simple rotation of his wrist. The fact that I was even standing was only because Aaron choose for me to be so, for with his leg positioned behind my kneecap like that, all it would take was one hit in the right area and I would collapse on the deck. I have to say that I was feeling a little discouraged with how easily, Aaron had got me into this hold.

"Aaron," I cried, "what's the point? I don't stand a chance against anyone who is even slightly a match for you!"

Even though I couldn't see his face, I could feel his frown in the way his body tensed suddenly. "Don't say that." he said in a low serious tone.

"Its true." I argued.

"Who saved both of our lives, by killing that Agent in Manila?"

I sighed. How could I forget?

"It was a lucky kick."

"But it was a kick all the same! You _always_ stand a chance if you _fight back_." he countered earnestly. Then after a pause and in a voice barely above a whisper: "You're a warrior, Marta."

_You're a warrior_. At his words my mind instantly flashed back to that horrible night in Manila, when he was sick after I had viralled him off—when I thought that I was going to lose him. He had begged me to leave him, to take what he had and save myself. I had refused. And that night I had learned that somewhere along the road, running for our lives, he had become a part of me. We were a team now. A matching set. You take both of us, or you take none.

His words, as they always do, had assured me. That maybe, just maybe, I wasn't such a lost case after all.

"Now," he began again, once more the instructor. "Try and escape. Don't focus on the pain, just focus on getting out."

Right now all I was focusing on was the press of his chest against my back and the way his breath tickled my ear, giving me goose bumps and making my face feel hot.

_What pain?_

But then Aaron shifted his wrist a fraction of an inch.

_Lord, but it hurt!_ It wasn't like the pain of any normal wrist hold, and it must have had something to do with the fact that he had his thumbs on pressure points. It didn't help that as the seconds slowly ticked by, his wrist kept rotating by steady increments, only increasing the pain.

"Focus, Marta." came Aaron's soft whisper in my ear again. "Think. Where is my weakness?"

_Focus, Marta. Think._

Suddenly it came to me in a flash, and unable to think clearly besides the fact that my actions would bring respite from the pain, I whipped back the elbow of my hand that was free into Aaron's face. An instinctual reaction made him drop my wrist, and again I brought the elbow of my now free arm back into his gut, so that his arm around my neck also fell away, before staggering away out of his reach, and whirling around with my arms up and ready in the fighting stance that he had taught me.

Aaron was standing slightly doubled over, one hand over his gut and the other on a rapidly swelling fat lip, staring at me with his mouth agape. For a split second, all we did was stare at each other, each equally amazed at my actions, before Aaron threw back his head and laughed.

"Well done!" he cried, beaming at me and laughing. "See? I'll make something of you yet!"

A thrill of pride shot through me and I couldn't help but grin. Aaron's laughter is rare, but very contagious.

He ran his tongue tenderly over his fat lip and chuckled to himself.

My pride evaporated into remorse.

"Are you all right? I'm so sorry..." I approached him, my hand reaching up for his face, but he caught it in his.

"Oh, no you don't!" he grinned. "That was a fair hit, and one I deserved." I smiled despite myself.

A mischievous glint came into his eyes and once more, before I could blink, he had whirled me into another hold, this one different from the last. "Try and get out of this one." he challenged, with a snarky grin I could hear in his voice.

"You'll be black and blue before we're done." I warned, with a smirk.

"I'm counting on it." he replied, adjusting his grip on me.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**So? What do you think? Please leave a review! It only takes a couple seconds and makes me really, REALLY happy! ;D (Plus it makes me want to put out the next chapter faster. Hint, hint.)**

**Aaron and Marta will be leaving the ship in the next chapter and that is when the action really starts to pick up. Vacation time over for them! ;P**


	6. The Birth of June Monroe

**A/N:**

**Eeek! It's been a while! Sorry guys, life caught up to me. ;)**

**Well here is your new chapter, and to make up for my delayed posting, I made it a long one.**

**Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all of you wonderful people who left me reviews, followed, and favorited me! You guys are Spectabulous! Keep it up, I absolutely love to hear from you guys! :)**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Marta:<span>**

_The whine of the motorcycle sounded like a roar in my ears. The eyes of our pursuer smoldered like coals._

_He was directly beside me, reaching out, but I fought back, kicking the motorcycle so that is slammed into the cement pillar: a twisted heap of metal and wreckage, the body lying lifeless on the pavement._

_A wall loomed before us. We were going to crash._

_"Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!" I screamed, before toppling us to slide painfully to a stop. Aaron was still, too still, and a strangled scream arose in my throat as I turned him over._

_He was dead._

_"Aaron! No! Don't leave me!" I screamed, shaking him. But he was gone. "Aaron!"_

_"Marta," came a horse, hollow voice, accompanied by the scraping of metal on cement._

_I looked up. The once lifeless body of the man had now arisen, standing slowly, a horribly mangled corpse._

_"Marta."_

_I backed myself up against the wall, trapped, as he took as shaky step towards me._

_His eyes were like fire._

"Marta!"

I awoke with a cry, bolting upright, my hands floundering on the bed and my breath coming in short gasps.

"Hey, its alright! You're safe! It was just a dream." came Aaron's soothing voice, and my thrashing arms were seized in Aaron's strong grasp. "I'm here. You're okay."

"That man—he was alive!" I gasped, still trapped in the fog of my nightmare, feebly attempting to fight Aaron off, still not quite realizing that it was him. "And Aaron—" I broke off with sob. _And Aaron's dead_, my heart cried out.

Aaron restrained my efforts to push him away, grabbing my arms and pinning me to the bed. "Marta, look at me!" He cried, bringing his face up inches away from mine. "You're safe! It was just a dream."

And just like that, the fog cleared, and I stopped struggling.

I did look at him. My eyes _devoured _him. There, on his lip, was the small cut I had put there during my Self-Defense lesson, a memory that still made me smile.

_You're alive,_ I thought, tears springing to my eyes with relief.

It was only after Aaron frowned that I realized that I had said it out loud. He sat back on his heels and surveyed me, while I put my head in my hands trying to erase the image of Aaron's cold lifeless body, broken on the pavement.

"Manila?" he asked quietly, still frowning.

"Yes," I whispered between my fingers.

Silence.

"I remember my first time—the first person I killed." I opened up my fingers a crack and peered at him. "I was on a surveillance op in Smolensk. My cover got blown and I found a hit man waiting for me back at my apartment." He paused.

"My hands were still shaking five hours later. I didn't even know his name..." This last part was said so quietly, and his eyes drifted down to his hands as if he still expected them to be shaking. And for just once, he let me see how broken he really was.

Its easy, with his lightning fast reflexes, training, linear-thinking tactical mind, and straight face, to assume that Aaron is but a cold-hearted calculating assassin; but that's just not the truth. Its a front, a survival method, because underneath all that he is just as human as you and me.

The memory of the nightmare was slipping away, following the fog of sleep that was steadily evaporating, leaving behind it a deep pity and understanding for Aaron. He and I, we were now in the same boat, both figuratively and literally.

I dropped my hands to take Aaron's, lacing my fingers between his, feeling the calluses and scars, each bearing a story and a history of a hard life. He stared at our intertwined hands as if mesmerized, turning them slowly as he compared my delicate smooth one to his broad rough one, absentmindedly running his thumb over my knuckles. My livelihood had lain in the delicate point of a needle, his: the cold barrel of a gun.

"I see their faces at night—all the people I've killed." he whispers. "They never really leave you. You replay their death in your mind over and over again, wondering _"was there another way?" "could I have spared their life?"_"

I held my breath. What he had described—I felt that now. How many times had I asked myself those same questions?

"But you cant do that to yourself. I learned a long time ago that doing that—dwelling on the past, it will destroy you." He looked at me, holding my gaze, his eyes surprisingly calm and at peace. "You cant blame yourself, Marta. All that guilt you feel, you have to let it go. It's was you or him, and he made his choice."

I dropped my head. I wanted to believe him, I really did, but that still didn't change the fact that I killed someone.

I _killed _someone.

The face of the man who's name I will probably never know resurfaced again in my mind. I had looked into his eyes, and had seen no soul. He wasn't a man, but a mindless robot, drugged into doing the bidding of whatever corrupt politician.

_He made his choice._

I looked up at Aaron.

"Did he?"

His frown, deep and thoughtful, returned, and he picked at a loose thread on the coverlet for a few moments.

"We all did." he answered in a low whisper, and contrary to his usual practice, he didn't look up to gage my reaction. It was almost as if he was afraid of what he would see.

The cabin was silent for a while as both of us were lost in our own thoughts, the poor thread on the coverlet suffering under Aaron's fingers as he mercilessly plucked at it. When it finally broke off in his hand he stared at it absentmindedly, twisting it between his fingers, before he suddenly broke the silence.

"Marta..." he began, speaking hesitantly and looking up at me with a cautious, almost shy glance that was, in itself, so uncharacteristic of his usual cool confidence that it gave me my first warning of what was coming. "That first night in Manila...Why did you stay?"

I didn't have a ready answer.

To be honest, I had been avoiding asking myself that same question, telling myself that it was irrelevant: the fact that I had stayed was all that mattered. But now, with his storm-blue eyes asking for answer, I was forced to find one.

Why _did _I stay?

One solution was that he was sick, deathly sick, and everything in my nature rebelled against leaving him alone in that exposed and vulnerable condition. Another was that, lets face it, he was, and still is, my best chance at survival; without him, I wouldn't last three days.

Both motives were valid, and answers I knew that Aaron would accept, but I also knew that those weren't the only reasons. There was something else, something I didn't really understand myself, or want to make an effort to.

I didn't _want_ to leave him, and deep down, I hoped that he thought the same about me.

"Because..." I cautiously began, summing up my courage to look him in the eye. "Because we needed each other."

A small smile formed on his lips and his eyes softened as he once more looked at our still intertwined hands. "That we did." he whispered so low, that I questioned whether I had heard him right. But then the smile faded and he grew serious.

"Marta, I cant ask you to follow me—to risk you life and any chance you might have to rebuild it...there's still time to leave. In the morning, when we dock at Zamboanga, I can have you on your way to any country you want. I can get you money, clothes, a new ID...just stay low until I clear all of this up, and then you should be safe. You can start over, make a new life for yourself, forget all of this ever happened..." He trailed off, waiting for my answer as he had seen the resolution in my face.

"You don't get it do you?" I said stopping him short. "Aaron, we _still_ need each other. All of this," I gestured vaguely to cabin. "Us running for our lives, its just as much my fault as it is yours. Yeah, I loaded the gun! And you pulled the trigger! I'm staying with you, and we _end_ _this_ _together_."

He looked at me in silence for a long while, his face completely unreadable. At last he gave a curt nod.

"Okay."

* * *

><p>"Marta," came the whisper and gentle shake. "Marta, wake up."<p>

I rolled and opened sleep bleared eyes. Aaron stood over me, fully dressed and with the backpack slung over his shoulder.

Shortly after our discussion during the night, Aaron had ordered me to sleep, claiming that I would need rest as it would be a "long day tomorrow". I had complied, climbing under the blankets once more while he curled up on the floor, but sleep was long in coming. My mind was full of plans, fears, and possibilities, and just wouldn't turn off. Aaron also, I knew to be awake as his breathing was uneven and he would stir occasionally, as if restless and eager to be on the move. Once, when sleep was just coming upon me and I was beginning to drift off, I heard the faint opening and closing of the cabin door as if in a dream, and now as I stared up at him, I wondered if he had slept at all.

"Where are we going?" I asked sleepily, rising to my elbows and skipping the pleasantries, for if he was going somewhere, as he obviously was, there was no way I was staying behind.

A flicker of a smirk crossed his face as he noticed my sentence in plural, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Get dressed, we're leaving. The boat will be docking at Zamboanga in five minutes."

Five minutes. In five minutes Aaron and I would be leaving the boat that I had come to love so much. The period of rest and safety was over, and it was now time to jump back into the reality that we were being hunted for our lives and were about to wage war against one of the strongest intelligence agencies in the world.

"Five minutes, huh?" I drawled, sitting up and trying to hide the sudden fear and sadness I felt under a smile.

He raised an eyebrow, looking me over, and the smile faded after I made accidental eye contact with him.

There was something about his eyes. Perhaps it was the way there always seemed to be a storm raging on its surface, making it almost impossible for me to guess what he was thinking. Or maybe it was how his eyes took in every detail in everything, constantly scanning for threats, emotions, information...

Either way, when his eyes met mine, it seemed that they were staring _through_ me; reading my thoughts, sensing my fear at leaving the security of the boat, and regret that our "vacation" as it seemed, was over. Something I couldn't put a name to flickered across his face, and then he was back to his cool, confident self.

"Be ready. I'll come and collect you in that time." And with that he turned and left the cabin, closing the door behind him and leaving me sitting on the bed.

"_Collect_ me?" I questioned quietly after the door had closed, before sighing and rising from the bed to put on my jacket and shoes. Once my hair had been combed back with my fingers and pulled into the messy ponytail that I was coming to hate, there was nothing else I really had left to do so I settled for making the bed and tidying up the cabin until Aaron appeared.

He had come up so silently that I didn't even know that he was there for a time, and I started when I finally did notice him watching me in the doorway.

"Last chance to walk away." He said in a low voice, his face a careful mask.

I cast one more glance around the now clean cabin, and tightened my ponytail.

"I told you already: we do this together."

He shrugged, and then held the door for me as I exited the cabin.

My senses were suddenly flooded with the sights, sounds, and smells of a bustling wharf in Zamboanga. People were everywhere: fishermen unloading crates and tending to their nets and boats, solicitors loudly shouting out their wares and produce, and natives going about their own business affairs while steadily droning on in Tagalog. Amongst the crowd I could pick out a few tourists as well, craning their necks to peer at everything and clinging to their purses or belongings as if they expected them to be snatched away at any moment. Everyone seemed to be in a competition to be heard over the crowd and the noise was incredible. Over all was the pervading scent of fish, sweat, and sea water.

I was struck dumb for a moment but Aaron's strong grasp on my hand, firmly leading me across the deck and down the gangplank, brought me back into reality. I quickly swiveled my head to take in one last glance of the boat I had come to love and saw Lauro and his son standing on the deck. They were busy looking at a chart, Lauro occasionally pointing to something on the paper as if instructing his son, but when they both glanced up and caught my eye, I raised a hand and waved goodbye. They were waving back when I turned away to follow Aaron into the crowd.

"If at any time you feel uncomfortable," he spoke over his shoulder to me, his voice at the perfect pitch that it could be heard over the noise of the crowd but that a passerby would have a hard time distinguishing his words. "I don't care if someone looks at you weird, if something feels out of place, or if you just feel _wrong—_you let me know, and we're gone."

This statement, simply said, reassured me and made me truly feel like we were more of a team—he trusted my instincts, he trusted me.

As Aaron spoke, he lead me through the crowd, keeping always a firm but comfortable grip on my arm, his head swiveling and his eyes bright, as he scanned the crowd constantly for threats.

"Our first stop will be a market. We need to stock up on supplies, and I don't know about you but I need a fresh set of clothes and a stick of deodorant." I laughed and he smiled. Clean clothes sounded heavenly right now, but what I really wanted was a hot shower. I assumed that would come later, when we rented a room for the night. "Second: keep an eye out for a electronic department store or an internet cafe." That was a strange choice for someone on the run, but before I could ask for his reasoning he was moving on.

"When we are done here, we move on and circle back to Manila. It will be dangerous, as the city will probably be crawling with Byer's assets, but it is also the last place that they will expect us to be. By now its safe to say that they know we left by boat, maybe even that we took Lauro's. It's only a matter of time till they track us here, so speed is everything." He turned and gave me a grin. "Lets give them a hard trail to follow."

* * *

><p>An hour and a half later Aaron and I were exiting a large market place, backpack filled with supplies and two shopping bags filled with new clothes, shoes, and yes, deodorant. I had to hand it to the man: he knew how to shop. Aaron could speed shop, and I mean <em>speed<em> shop. He knew what he wanted ahead of time, and he would track it down till he was satisfied with the quality _and _price. If any begrudging manager ever took too long in haggling over a price or tried to rip him off, all it took was one glare from Aaron, and he was walking out the door with the item he wanted, for far less than the usual price and in eight minutes flat.

Aaron led me to a public bathroom where he intended that we change into our new clothes, and after doing so in the ladies room, washing my face, brushing my teeth, and applying a coat of deodorant, I felt like a new person; though I was still craving that shower. I emerged to find him waiting for me looking significantly cleaner himself while also wearing his fresh set of clothes. He even styled his hair.

"You look nice." he said grinning.

I scoffed, though his comment made me blush a little. "You don't look so bad yourself." I replied, hitting him lightly in the chest. His grin widened.

"We're going in there." he said, pointing to a large department store window where an array of electronics were displayed. Aaron began to lead me into it, walking straight to the phone rack where he bought two cheap flip phones.

"In case we are ever separated, you call me on this phone." he said putting one into my hand. "One call, and then you ditch it somewhere. Got it?" I nodded, slipping the phone into my pocket.

"Good." And then he was moving again, this time towards the computers on display for "test drives". Firing one up, he opened up the web browser.

"Watch the door." he muttered and I complied, though not just a little curious.

When next I snuck in a glance at the computer screen, he was on some bird watching website with a username of brownrecluse5 opening up a chat box with someone named luckycat467.

_brownrecluse5: I have another sighting, _Aaron wrote.

And then sat back in his chair with a deep frown on his face, waiting, his eyes flicking up defensively towards the door.

"What are you doing?" I asked, unable to stem my curiosity.

Aaron never took his eyes off the screen.

"Contacting someone." was his cryptic answer.

_Contacting someone?_ Wasn't it Aaron who told me that I couldn't contact _anyone_? That they would become a target if I did? And why was he on a bird watching sight? I was just about to press Aaron further, when a response from his mysterious contact appeared on the screen.

_luckycat467: I'm listening._

Aaron jumped for the keyboard, his fingers flying.

_brownrecluse5: It's a pair of Endangered Species. They're on their way to Manila._

_luckycat467: A pair? That's unusual behavior for our bird._

_brownrecluse5: It's unusual circumstances. Our bird picked up a female along the way._

Aaron flashed a quick glance towards me.

_luckycat467: How long till our birds reach Manila?_

_brownrecluse5: Two days. Though I have a feeling they wont be staying for very long, there are poachers on their tail._

_luckycat467: And where is their nest?_

Aaron thought for a moment, his gaze instinctively falling towards the door.

_brownrecluse5: Pier 67. They usually roost at dusk._

_luckycat467: I'll be there._

At those words, Aaron speedily began deleting the messages and his browsing history before powering down the computer.

"Time to move." he said, taking my hand once more and pulling me towards the door.

"Aaron," I cried softly, "what were you doing? Who was that?"

"You'll see, soon enough." Was all he said.

We found a bus station and boarded one, and what followed was a very long, tedious journey back to Manila. Aaron never stayed on one bus for more than an hour, and was constantly alternating our mode of transport, going from bus to bus, hailing taxi's, even riding a ferry for a short distance. More than a few times he would board a bus, only to exit out the other side, as if to shake any tail we might have. Throughout our passage he hardly spoke, his eyes bright as they scanned faces and kept a close watch on where any hands might rest.

By night fall, I knew that we had covered quite a distance and had left a difficult trail to follow. Aaron seemed satisfied, though not for one second did he let his guard down. Only when we had rented a room in some hole-in-the-wall, did he even slightly relax.

This time there were two small cots, one on either side of the room, and Aaron took the one that faced the door and also had a vantage point by the window.

"Sleep." he ordered. "We leave first thing in the morning."

I was too tired to argue, and almost as soon as my head hit the pillow sleep began to wash over me, making my aching limbs feel like liquid and my eyes lead. My last conscious sight was of Aaron, sitting with his back propped up against the wall facing the door, his eyes close and his head back, his hand lying loosely over the loaded gun in his lap.

* * *

><p>Aaron woke me at dawn, his hair still wet from the quick military shower he had taken.<p>

"I got you this," he said, holding up a box of blonde hair dye. "With our pictures on the police radar and possibly even the news, the less we look like ourselves the better."

His reasoning made sense, and I took note of the dark shades and baseball cap on his bed, but I was rather fond of my dark locks.

"You're the boss," I sighed, taking the box from his hand and the backpack from off the floor, before retreating to the bathroom.

Following Aaron's example, I finally, _finally_, took that hot shower I had been looking forward to for so long now, before getting dressed into my new clothes. I stared rather loathsomely at the box on the sink counter, I confess, but the thing had to be done.

I stared at my face in the mirror.

_The less we look like ourselves the better._

If I was going to commit to one change, I might as well go all the way.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, the reserved doctor Marta Shearing no longer existed. In her place, was the confident June Monroe. She wore a white thick-strapped tank top covered up by a light, pastel blue cardigan, with jeans and brown knee high, flat-soled boots. June Monroe's hair was a short, free cut, its ends just brushing her shoulders in a loose braid, while its color was a sunny blonde, textured by steaks of brown that highlighted her hazel eyes.<p>

Gone were the bangs, the dark curls, gone too, was Marta Shearing.

A knock sounded on the bathroom door.

"Marta," came Aaron's teasing, though slightly anxious voice. "You about done in there?"

Taking one last glance at myself in the mirror, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Aaron blinked. Took a double take. Blinked again. Looked me over from head to toe.

"Well?" I prompted.

"Wow." he said, still staring. "You uh—you look really different! I wouldn't even recognize you..."

"I thought that was what we were going for."

He jolted as if awaking from hypnosis. "Yeah. Yeah, we were." he parroted, talking almost as if himself, and running a hand through his hair.

A girlish desire for his opinion suddenly came across me. "So, um, you like it?"

"I do." he nodded, looking into my eyes, suddenly serious. "Really!"

But then he smiled that snarky grin of his. "I'll miss the curls though." And he gave my braid a playful tug before turning back to his bed, thankfully missing my deep blush.

"We have to get moving," Aaron called out to me by the window, as he put on the baseball cap and shades, effectively hiding his face. I nodded and handed him the backpack from inside the bathroom and he slung it over his shoulders.

Three minutes later, we were out on the street hailing a taxi.

The day was passed much the same way as the one before it: bus hopping, hailing taxis, and riding ferries till, at long last, we entered Manila about two hours before dusk. I had never seen Aaron so tense as he was now. As for me, I would jump at the slightest touch.

I was painfully aware of the fact that the bustling city we were in right now was crawling with people that actively sought to destroy us, and for all I knew, could be closing the distance at that moment. I was suddenly very thankful for the extreme measures I had taken in disguising my appearance. Aaron kept us either in the abandoned alleyways, or in the thickest of crowds, never in the middle ground where a face could be seen, remembered, or recognized. When once he found a group of American tourists, he kept us close behind them, as if we were among their party.

At first I wondered where Aaron was headed to, as he obviously had a fixed destination but was choosing the safest route, but then I remembered his messages with his mysterious contact.

_Pier 67. They usually roost at dusk._

Dusk was now fast approaching.

We were nearing the ports, and the crowd was thinning. Suddenly it disappeared all together, but still Aaron continued along the docks, the sound of our footfalls echoing on the wooden planks. Up ahead, a large roofed structure led out a distance into the water, and at its base were scrawled the letters: 67.

It was now dusk.

"This is it." Aaron whispered, and slowly he stepped into the structure with myself sticking close behind him.

Inside, it was significantly darker as the dock was relatively closed up by the roof and large beams that supported it. High up in the rafters, pigeons roosted, cooing softly amongst themselves while the waves lapped gently against the pier. At the far end, it opened up to a gorgeous view of the water and the sunset as it just began to dip below the horizon. Silhouetted against the backdrop was the quiet form of a woman, her back to us.

"You know," the woman said, as she stared out over the water. "I never thought pigeons would become an endangered species."

"Especially after how much you feed them." was Aaron's quick reply.

She turned, and faced us, a delighted smile upon her lips. "Hello Aaron."

Aaron's own face was lit up by a smile. "Hello Nikki."

Much to my amazement, the distance between them was rapidly covered, and in no time they were in each other's arms in a tight embrace.

"I missed you Aaron," the woman whispered, her head resting on his shoulder.

"I missed you too," was his affectionate reply. And then, as if he suddenly remembered my presence, he broke away from the woman and turned towards me.

"Nikki," he began, one arm wrapped loosely around her waist. "Meet Doctor Marta Shearing." The woman smiled at me.

"Marta," Aaron continued. "Meet Nicolette Parsons, my sister."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Heheheheh. The plot thickens... ;)**

**What do you think? Let me know in the reviews!**


	7. The Secret of my Life

**A/N:**

**Wow! You guys must have really liked the last chapter! ;D You have no idea how happy all of your guys' reviews made me! Keep it up, yeah?**

**So this chapter is a very short one, but a necessary short one to maintain the flow of things. Not to worry though, because I am already about halfway done with chapter 8. Enjoy, and keep being the awesome fans you are! ;D**

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><p><strong><span>Aaron:<span>**

It was rather a mean trick of me to play on Marta: springing on her the fact that Nikki was my sister. Her face was pretty priceless though.

"I'm sorry, you're his sister?" she asked, blinking as her mind hurried to catch up. She turned to me. "You have a sister?"

"It's a long story." I sighed, looking down at Nikki.

And it was.

Nikki was, quite literally, the secret of my life. No one, and I mean _no one_, knew of our relationship outside of Nikki and myself. Heck, _I _didn't even know till about two years ago. Well, that's not entirely true: I knew I had a sister somewhere in the world, but I didn't know it was Nikki.

It all started back in the reign of Kenneth Kitsom.

I don't remember much about my life before Outcome, only bits and pieces, like looking at your reflection through the shards of a shattered mirror. One shard I have never lost, however, is the drunken secret my father confessed to me over a wet pillow. A story of an affair with a rich politician's daughter, of a child that was conceived before my father up and left. The woman's name, he had told me, was Sophie Parsons. The child's, Nicolette, or Nikki for short.

After the baby was born, my father never saw her or the woman again, and never learned what had become of either of them, while I grew up none the wiser. That is, until two years ago when I suffered from serious qualms about exactly what I was doing in Outcome.

I had just bombed a building containing 9 terrorists and 4 hostages, all women and children, with no survivors, a successful mission by all accounts except mine.

_No one knew those people were in there_, Byer had told me, lecturing me on what he called "emotional noise". _We are the sin eaters of this world._

I had born it, stony faced on the outside while I was dying on the inside, until I was dismissed. Evidently, Byer had been a little worried, as the next day I found the closest "in-the-loop" psychiatrist knocking on my door—which just so happened to be a woman named Nicolette Parsons who's typical job was to asses the emotional security of Treadstone agents.

It took me about 8 seconds to conclude that I had found my long-lost sister.

What happened next was history, but its safe to say that we lost no time in getting to know each other. You see, we were both tired of being alone in this world, and we both were starting to feel afraid of what Outcome and Treadstone had become.

I didn't know what Byer would do if he found out that Nikki was my sister, and I wasn't ready to lose the sister that I had just gained. So we kept it a secret. We would communicate in code through nondescript websites, where we would arrange meetings. My last snafu, when I dropped off the grid for ten days to be with her, landed me in Alaska for some sort of disciplinary training exercise.

And we all know what happened in Alaska.

Nikki moved forward to shake Marta's hand, who offered it as if on autopilot. "It's a pleasure to meet you Marta." she said, smiling. "I have to say I'm a little curious to hear your story. It's not everyday that Aaron has an accomplice, mush less a woman..." she arched an eyebrow at me.

Marta smiled at Nikki, once more in control of her mental faculties.

"Well, that makes two of us." And she too turned to look at me.

"Hey, look," I said, on the spot. "I would love to explain everything, to both of you, but right now we need to move."

The sun was now nearly below the horizon and the last thing I wanted was to be caught out in the dark. At night, vision is impaired, crowds thin, and the streets become more dangerous. Plus, I didn't like being out in the open like this; within full view of a scout or a snipers rifle...

I turned to Nikki. "Do you have an apartment or a room somewhere that we can go to?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I have a room about a mile from here."

I took Marta's hand and motioned. "Lead the way."

Nikki's eyes flashed down to our intertwined hands, and then to my face as if trying to read something there, but she said nothing and began to lead the way to her room. At my guidance, we stuck to the shadows or tagged along among groups of people who laughed and chatted on their way to their homes. Soon we reached an old, run-down apartment complex, and after climbing the echo-y stairs to the third floor, Nikki plied a key to a rusted lock and then pushed the door open with her shoulder.

The room inside was small and comely, filled only with the essentials, but there were two cots in the back room, and a couch in the main room that connected with the small kitchen. By this couch, leaned a small black suitcase as if left there in a hurry, for everything else was untouched.

"Its not much," Nikki explained, "but it should do for the three of us. I could take the couch, Aaron, if you would like..."

I didn't like how she said this, coupled with the questioning look she gave me. It was as if she were testing the waters, hinting at the fact that I might want to share the back room with Marta...

"I'll take the couch," I said quickly.

It was all about vantage points, I told myself. If someone came in the room during the night, I could be hidden behind the door by the time they entered for a surprise attack. Also, from what I could see, if my head was angled a certain way while lying on the couch I could command a good view of the street below that led to the entrance of the apartment complex.

Nikki nodded at my request, and then moved into the kitchen to prepare a pot of tea, snatching up a few bags from the complimentary basket on the table, while Marta sat on the couch and removed her shoes, rubbing her sore feet. I took a stand by the window, crossing my arms and leaning up against the wall.

"So," Marta began from the couch, "does Byer know about you two?" And she motioned to Nikki and I.

"Nobody knows," I answered. "Except you." And then I explained how Nikki and I had first discovered that we were related, our decision to keep it a secret, and how we pulled it off.

"luckycat467," Marta whispered.

"And brownrecluse5," I responded, nodding.

When I got to the part about Alaska, I continued the narrative, this time speaking to Nikki and explaining the events that followed: how I faked my own death, how I saved Marta, and how we went on the run together, traveling to Manila where she viralled me off. I left nothing out, and it was well into the night by the time I had told everything leading up to our meeting on the pier.

"So you're going to take on Byer." Nikki chuckled into her steaming cup of tea. "That's why you are here? To collect evidence to shut him down?" She said it more like a statement.

I looked towards Marta who was also sipping on her tea. "We cant keep running." I said softly, turning to meet Nikki's gaze. She understood my message: _Marta wasn't meant for this. She cant live her whole life constantly looking over her shoulder._ Nikki nodded imperceptibly.

"Besides," I continued, "There are others out there. Other Outcome agents, and who knows how many other programs. Treadstone was just the tip of the iceberg."

At the word _Treadstone_, Marta's head snapped up. "You were his source!" She cried, looking at Nikki. "You told Aaron all that about Bourne! He said you were a psychiatrist for Treadstone. You were Bourne's weren't you?"

Nikki blushed. "I was more than just his psychiatrist. I kind of went on the run with him for a while. Helped him walk out on Blackbrier." She paused. "He saved my life."

"And that's why we need you," I interjected. "No one knows Bourne like you do. We need your help to find him."

An expectant silence filled the room as Nikki stared into her tea. "It's been nearly five days since he left me at the station in Marrakech." she said quietly. "And last I heard he had jumped off a five story building into a river, possibly after being shot. He could be injured in a hospital somewhere, but I doubt it with all of the media coverage he's been getting, and besides, its just not him to seek help like that. I don't know, I just..." she drifted off, frowning into her cup.

I knew that tone. There was something else she was not telling us.

"You just what?" I pressed.

She took a sip of her tea, took a breath, and then looked me in the eye. "Two days ago, shortly after you had contacted me while I was still in Morocco, I got this weird feeling. Call me crazy, but I felt like someone was watching me. That Jason was watching me. I didn't see him, there were no messages left, nothing. I just _sensed_ him, you know?"

I frowned deep in thought. I understood the feeling, when you are in this business your senses get heightened, enhanced or not. How many times had that unexplainable feeling of being watched saved my life? There are no signs, no warnings, just the twist in your own gut and the strange feeling of the hair on the back of your neck rising. They say there are five senses, but really, there are six.

"Do you think," I began carefully, "that the next time you feel that way, you could send him a message?"

Nikki set her cup down and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. "I think I could do that, yes. But I'm not done." And both Marta and I looked at her expectantly.

"I want in. In on _this_." she said motioning to Marta and I. "I want to help you take down Byer."

I looked at her for a long moment, and then glanced at Marta, who was waiting for my answer. I raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say _"your choice"_.

Marta turned to Nikki. "Okay."

Nikki smiled. Turning to me: "Do you know where they are keeping the body of that agent from the other program?"

"Well there's only one mortuary that has jurisdiction over the area where he died, so yeah."

"Alright," she continued, nodding. "And do you have a plan?"

I smiled. "Oh, I have a plan."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Lots of action for you guys next chapter! ;D**


	8. A Lesson on How to Rob the Dead

**A/N:**

**I couldn't sleep last night, and quite literally wrote both chapter 7 and 8 in around 8 hours. I think that is a new record for me. ;P**

**As always, thank you all for your reviews! They inspire me to write better and faster. :)**

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><p><strong><span>Nikki:<span>**

"What took you so long?" Marta cried out as Aaron entered the warehouse. Seeing that it was just him, I relaxed, setting down the Glock that Aaron had given me before he had left on the table beside my laptop.

"Sorry, there was some sort of gang fight and police were everywhere. I had to take a detour." he explained, taking one last look around before he closed the door softly.

It was now early in the morning, and we were camped out in an empty warehouse directly opposite of the morgue that held the body and personal effects of the agent that had attacked Aaron and Marta. Now that Aaron was back, it was time to claim our evidence.

"They've been open for two hours now." I called over to Aaron, who walked over to me and set down the backpack he had been carrying on the table. "Did you get everything?"

"Yeah," he said, and began taking out objects from the backpack: Three small Bluetooth's, a dusty brown Service Man's outfit, a brown paper package, a clipboard, and an onion. "These are for you." And he passed a Bluetooth set to each of us, which we put on. Marta got the call going, so that all three of us could hear the other through the Bluetooth's as if connected through a com system, while I fired up my laptop, and Aaron changed into the Service Man's outfit. I noticed Marta's furious blush and averting of the eyes, as Aaron stripped down to his boxers before pulling on the uniform.

When he was dressed, Aaron went over to Marta, and I watched them out of the corner of my eye, a little curious exactly what their relationship was.

They had saved each other's life, been together 24/7 for a week now, and were now working together as a team. That each trusted the other completely was apparent, but beyond that, I wasn't sure.

Aaron had always told me that the worst mistake he could ever make would be to fall in love. That it would compromise him in ways he could never hope to repair, and would literally be the death of him. In between the lines of that statement was the unspoken confession that he was already compromised a little for loving me as a sister. We both realized that, and his only assurance was that no one could ever know, that no one should ever have the power to use that against him and against me.

But now, as I watched him, I saw a new side to him. There was, in his actions towards Marta, a softness and a tenderness that was quite different from any he had ever shown me. Also, of one thing, he was _fiercely_ protective of her. I could see it in the way he stood beside her, watched her back, even in the way he held her hand almost possessively when guiding her. Yet despite all of this, the only thing that seemed to exist between them, for the moment, was a deep bond of friendship.

I wondered how long that could last. I wondered, if Aaron was already compromised.

"Are you nervous?" Aaron asked Marta quietly, as he produced a boot knife and knelt down to slice the onion in half on the floor.

Marta gave a incredulous little chuckle, as she pulled out her braid so that her short blonde hair concealed the Bluetooth headset on her ear. "I'm terrified." she confessed. "I don't know how you stay so calm in situations like this."

Aaron glanced up at her, wiping the knife on his pant leg. "You want to know a secret?"

Marta looked down at him expectantly.

"I'm never calm."

She arched an eyebrow.

"Seriously," Aaron laughed. "I get terrified too. But I have a trick."

"What's that?"

"Whenever I am about to go on an op, I think of something that makes me happy, something I love, and I focus on that—instead of the knot of fear in my gut."

Marta laughed, and I saw Aaron smile at the sound. He pressed one half of the onion into Marta's hand.

"Hold this up to your eyes. It will make things seem a little more real."

Marta did so, a little hesitantly, and soon she began to feel the burn and tears sprang to her eyes. "Ah, that stings!" she exclaimed, but dutifully kept the onion close to her face.

When her smarting eyes were red and puffy, the occasional tear rolling down her cheek, Aaron quickly took the onion from her hand as if to spare her any unnecessary second of pain.

"Thats good." he muttered, while Marta, unable to resist any longer, rubbed her eyes a little. He watched her, his face a mask, and then reached down and once more pulled out his sheathed boot knife.

"Take this," he said, handing it to her. She glanced at the knife in his hand, and then at Aaron, before taking it and slipping it in the back of her waistband, concealing it under her shirt.

"Aaron, we need to get a move on." I called, loathe to interrupt them but painfully aware of the seconds ticking by.

He shifted, hesitated.

Marta took a deep breath, and absentmindedly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear before she remembered about the Bluetooth and freed it again.

"Are you thinking about what makes you happy?" Aaron whispered quietly.

Marta looked up at him, closed her eyes, took a breath, and smiled.

"Ready?" he asked.

She opened her eyes, bright with the memory of something. "Ready." she said, and turned and walked out the door he held for her.

Aaron stood motionless for a second after she had passed out and he had closed the door, his hand still on the handle, and his face a storm of conflicting emotions of which, over all, reigned a deep furrow on his brow.

Then he began to pace.

"Com check." he said into his Bluetooth.

"Loud and clear." was Marta's whispered response, heard by both of us.

Aaron exhaled and continued to pace, stopping near me.

"What's the status on the camera's?" he asked, leaning over my shoulder to peer at my laptop screen.

That was my job: to hack the morgue's mainframe and loop the camera's at the right time so that Marta could get what she needed without interference. It wouldn't be that hard for me, the Philippines being a third-world country and all, and its not like a morgue in Manila needs state of the art security.

As I expected, all it took was a few short keystrokes and then I was in, commanding the camera's and offering a full view of what was transpiring inside.

"I'm in." I reported to both Aaron and Marta, and he was by my side in an instant, peering into the camera's and tracking Marta's progress.

We both watched on the screen as she entered the mortuary, hair disheveled, eyes puffy and red, and obviously racked with grief. Staggering over to the front desk, she opened her mouth to speak, and then was suddenly overcome with sobs. The man sitting behind the counter stared at her, obviously used to this sort of thing but still upset at the image of Marta crying.

"I—I'm looking for—for a man—my boyfriend." she managed between sobs.

"I'm sorry miss, but I am going to need your name first and some identification." The clerk said, watching her.

"My name is J—June Monroe." Marta whispered, making a show of digging through her purse with shaky hands till she pulled out her passport which she handed to the clerk. The man took it, glanced from the picture to Marta's face and began typing something on the computer.

"And what is your boyfriends name miss?" The clerk asked, frowning at his computer screen, fingers poised over the keyboard.

"J—Joseph Cartella."

A moment of silence filled with the tapping of the keyboard and Marta's sniffles ensued, before the man looked up.

"I'm sorry miss, we have no one here under that name."

Marta's sobs turned to a sort of choking, as if she were trying to swallow them.

"He's been missing for a while. I saw his body on the news—they said they had him here."

Once more the man frowned at his computer screen. "Well we do have a John Doe just recently registered. He is of Taiwanese and or Japanese decent?"

Marta nodded, burying her face in her hands. "Can I see him?"

The man hesitated. Marta's sobs renewed themselves.

"Right this way, miss."

Over my shoulder Aaron smiled. "She's good." I couldn't help but agree.

Leading Marta through a door, the clerk and Marta disappeared from view on one camera screen, but appeared into the frame of another. Walking down a whitewashed hall, they entered another room and another camera lens, this time of a sterile morgue, the walls lined with numbered body freezers. The clerk referred to a clipboard he held, before walking to one of the freezers and opening it, sliding out the body tray till the head and chest of the man inside was revealed.

This time, Marta's exhalation was real, after all, the mangled corpse of the man on the tray was the same one she had killed. She seem overpowered with grief when she saw the body, and began sobbing with renewed effort, frantically crying out: "Its him! Its him!"

The clerk looked extremely uncomfortable, unsure whether to try to console her, and settled for scribbling something in his clipboard.

"Can I—Can you give me a moment?" Marta asked, in between sobs, turning tearful eyes upon him.

He hesitated, but then melted under her gaze.

"Of course." he said, and hurried out of the room leaving Marta alone.

Aaron stood and grabbed the Glock on the table, tucking it into his waistband and concealing it under his shirt.

"I'm up." he said, snagging the brown paper package and clipboard, and walking out the door.

"Alright Marta," I reported into my Bluetooth, "Aaron is on his way. Now I need you to remain in character until I say you can stop."

Marta continued crying.

My fingers flying over the keyboard, I recorded about a minute of Marta's "grief" before I looped the scene back, having it play continually on whatever monitor anyone might be watching the cameras on, giving Marta the freedom to do what she needed without being seen or recorded from that end. As far as anyone else knew, she was still sobbing over the body.

"Looping the camera's in 3, 2, 1."

After my countdown, Marta abruptly stopped sobbing, and rubbed her eyes.

"Lord, my abs are getting a workout from all this crying." she whispered jokingly. I heard a sound on Aaron's end, and couldn't resist a smile myself.

Outside the room, I could see the clerk on the camera watching what he thought was a live feed of Marta. After about three minutes, he made a move to get up and go join her but at that moment Aaron entered, swaggering up confidently to the front desk.

"Hi, how are you?" he asked with a winning smile, as he reached for the package under his arm.

The clerk spouted off a "good" on autopilot, not even the least curious of Aaron in his inconspicuous uniform.

Aaron smiled. "Delivery! Think you could sign off on it, for me?" he continued with a casual air, setting the package on the counter and holding the clipboard out to the man.

The clerk peered at the package. "What is this?" he asked.

"Hey, my job's just to deliver the things not know what's in them." Aaron replied with a laugh, not missing a beat.

The clerk shrugged, and grabbing a pen, wrote his signature on the line that Aaron pointed out for him.

"Thank you," Aaron mumbled, as he too began to write something on the clipboard. He glanced up at his surroundings and shook his head. "I don't know how you work here." he said conversationally. "All the dead bodies..."

The clerk looked around him too, and sighed. "I don't know myself. They really don't pay me enough."

"I know right!" Aaron cried, and easily struck up a conversation with the man.

Meanwhile, Marta had been busy.

Snagging up the clipboard the clerk had left on the tray, she referred to it and found the right drawer in a cabinet, pulling out the dead agent's personal effects.

"I found the necklace," she reported, as she removed the dog tag-like thing from the bag, sliding open its cover and peering inside. "There are still Chems inside." she said with a sigh of relief. In a flash, the necklace was in her pocket, and the bag replaced in the cabinet.

I set about deleting any log of its existence.

Marta referred to the clipboard again, and this time moved to a large stand-up freezer on the far side of the room. The inside of this was lined with small vials of samples of all sorts of bodily fluids from each of the bodies stored in the morgue. It took her a few moments to find the right vial, running her fingers over the labels till she found what she wanted.

"I have the blood sample," she at last cried out excitedly, carefully slipping the vial into her pocket as well.

In a few moments her tracks were covered and everything was in its exact place as before. Marta went to stand over the corpse of the agent once more, resuming almost her exact position as before.

"Shift your left hand about two degrees to the right." I instructed her, comparing the live footage with that of the looped camera.

She did so. "I'm ready," she whispered, resuming her sobbing.

I poised my finger over the keyboard. "Switching to live feed in 3, 2, 1." I pressed a key, and the camera frame flickered almost imperceptibly, before reverting to normal.

In the other room, Aaron, hearing that Marta had gotten what she wanted, began to end his conversation with the clerk.

"Ah man," he said, peering at his watch. "I have another delivery to make. I'm sorry. It was nice talking to you!" he called, before walking out with the clipboard under his arm, leaving the satisfied clerk at the counter.

"Good job, Marta." He said into the Bluetooth once outside. "The guy will be coming back for you soon."

True to his word, after glancing into the monitor and seeing that Marta was still grieving in the back room, he started up and walked towards her, evidently having forgotten about her.

"I'm sorry miss," he said when he entered, "but you need to leave now."

Marta sniffed, placed a "loving" hand on the dead agent's chest, before turning and walking out of the room.

"You are going to have to clear things up with the police first, before you can claim the body." he said, once more taking a seat at the front desk. "But come back when we are open tomorrow and we can go over the details."

Marta nodded, mumbled her thanks, and walked out.

A few seconds later, she was joining Aaron and I in the warehouse.

Her face was glowing as she presented the necklace and the blood sample to Aaron.

"You," he cried, gripping her by the shoulders, "were _amazing_! Ever considered joining the CIA? You would make one hell of an agent!"

She blushed with pride, reaching up to remove her Bluetooth from her ear. "In light of recent events, I think I'm good."

Aaron laughed and released her, walking over to congratulate me.

In two minutes we were exiting the warehouse that now held no evidence that we were even there. It was now almost lunch time, and the streets were once more bustling with activity as we made our way back to my apartment, reaching it in relative safety.

"I don't like being here any longer than necessary." Aaron said in a low voice.

In response I walked to the closet and pulled out a black backpack, literally dumping all the contents of my small suitcase into it, before zipping it up and slinging it across my shoulders. "Then let's leave."

He nodded, taking one last glance out the window.

Suddenly his whole body tensed, like a coiled spring. Both Marta and I followed his gaze.

There, across the street, was a SWAT team.

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><p><strong>AN:**

**You knew they would catch up to them eventually... (Evil laugh)**

**Leave a review!**


	9. Game Over

**A/N:**

**Vacation is officially _over. _Time to run!**

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><p><strong><span>Aaron:<span>**

"Move!" I shouted, grabbing both of their arms and propelling them out of the door.

It was silent as of yet in the hallway, but I only stopped for a glance before dragging them up the stairwell to the fourth floor. The rusted locks on the doors were more for decoration than for actual security, and I easily broke into one of the rooms with minimal sound and damage by forcibly applying my shoulder to it. The room, as I had deduced, was empty, and without stopping, I ran to the window and forced it open. The rooftop of the opposite building was within easy leaping distance and made of cement, while all along the horizon stretched a veritable highway of close constructed homes, often built into each other to conserve space.

"Marta, you first." I said quickly, motioning to the window which I held open. She paled, but drew back for a running start, before flying out the window and landing safely in a roll.

Nikki quickly removed her backpack and tossed it onto the rooftop beside Marta, before she also jumped and landed in a roll.

It was now my turn, and I looked around the room for something to prop the window open, while outside I could hear the distant echo of boots on the metal staircase. Snatching a spoon from the kitchen, I wedged it into the window frame, before taking a running leap onto the rooftop without losing a second.

Landing in a crouch, I picked up a crumbling chunk of cement and whirling around, I threw it hard, hitting the spoon perfectly and causing the window to fall shut.

"Lets go!" I cried, and pushed my girls on.

We took off at a run, myself now in the lead, now dropping behind to watch their backs, leaping from roof to roof and following a path that changed with our terrain, but was that which I knew to be consistently hiding us from view of the windows in the apartment complex.

I don't know how they found us, but now that they did, I could be sure that they would come in force and with a vengeance.

"Down here!" I suddenly called out, and directed Nikki and Marta towards a rusty fire escape that lead down off the roof into a dark alley.

They speedily climbed down, looking up at me when they reached the ground, but I didn't even bother with the ladder, lowering myself to cling to the ledge before silently dropping to the pavement.

"Stay close." I whispered, before speed-walking with them at my heels, out of the alley and into a thick crowd that was milling about in the streets.

I have always had mixed feelings about crowds. In one sense, they are an operative like me's worst nightmare: too many threats to asses, too many bodies bumping into you, and far too much going on at one time. But in a situation like the present, they are a form of safety, a way to hide in plain sight while still pursuing your directive and leaving little to no impression. After all, what's just one more face among the masses? Or three.

However, the problem in this situation was that all of our faces were obviously American, and amongst a sea of tan skin and predominantly black hair, our white skin and Marta's sunny yellow hair stood out like a beacon.

With hardly any movement at all to betray me, I snagged a dark blue scarf off of a venders stall as we passed and handed it to Marta.

"Cover your hair with this, and change out your cardigan." I ordered.

She did so without question, wrapping the scarf around her head and taking off her light blue cardigan to tie around her waist, while Nikki, without me even asking her to, concealed her face under her hood.

I suppose she was getting used to being on the run.

Again I snagged an item off of a stall as we passed, this time a black and green baseball cap to replace my red and white one, and I too hid my face under my hood.

First rule about looking for someone in a crowd, is that you scan for the colors of their hair, hat, or shirt, for that's pretty much all you can see amongst hundreds of people.

I wasn't about to let that be used against us.

I now needed to devise a plan. That we couldn't stay in Manila was obvious, but even the Philippines was a little too cramped for my comfort—it would be only a matter of time before we would be found.

So, a new country it was.

The Philippines being basically a collection of islands, our options of escape were limited to either a plane, or a boat.

Going to an airport after Marta and I's last stunt, would be like signing off on our own death. Byer would know that, and would be looking at our other options to shut down.

The fact that we were tracked to Manila in the first place showed me that they knew that we had exited the city initially by boat, which wasn't that hard of a guess considering their agent was found dead by a wharf. Chances were, that Byer also would have the nearby harbors watched in case we attempted to try that again.

I needed another way out, one that would be hard to track, but fast enough to get us safely into another country by the time they do—for they _would_ eventually find us.

Especially now that we have the Chems and blood sample.

Suddenly it hit me: a private plane. And I knew just where to find one.

"Remember that large warehouse we passed in the taxi while on our way to the lab?" I asked Marta in a low voice, my lips barely moving. She thought for a while and then nodded. "Well it had an airfield in the back." I watched her face as the meaning of my words dawned on her.

"The warehouse was filled planes." she whispered, and Nikki looked interested.

I nodded. "Thats our ticket out of here."

Taking off my backpack, I passed it to Marta. Inside it was all of our provisions and a large bundle of hundreds—enough to bribe a pilot to fly us out of the country with no questions asked. She gave me a questioning glance, her hazel eyes peering into mine. I let her see my answer, and she slipped the straps of the backpack over her delicate shoulders.

Better to be prepared.

The sound of sirens was growing steadily closer, making me feel anxious, but I forced myself, and thereby Marta and Nikki who followed my example, to walk at a steady pace, carried along by the current of people and blending in among the crowd.

Suddenly a cold chill spread up my spine and my fingers began to tingle—to me, a warning that I was being watched as obvious as if someone had posted a sign boasting of the fact.

I swiveled my head in search of the aggressor, but saw nothing and no one out of place amongst the crowd.

Once more grabbing the arms of Marta and Nikki, I led them out of the main crowd and down a bystreet, hoping to possibly draw out into the open anyone who might be following us.

No one appeared, however, and the quiet street led to a dead end bordered by houses. One of them seemed to be empty, and into this I drew my girls, intending to exit out the other side onto the street.

The house was dark and still, while the sound of a child crying in the next house over could be distinguished over the hum of metropolitan life. Slowly and cautiously, we rounded the corners of the house, following a hallway that led up a flight of creaking stairs. The second story consisted of a series of sparsely furnished rooms that seemed to be meant for bedrooms, and had a third stairwell that led to a roof access.

I was on my way towards this, when the deafening sound of window shattering into a thousand shards split the silence like a knife.

I whirled around my gun out, just as a dark shape tackled me, slamming me to the ground forcefully and causing the gun in my hand to clatter across the floor.

Marta screamed, and I saw the glint of a knife blade as it flashed for my throat. My hand came up, arresting its movement just centimeters from my flesh and what ensued was a desperate contest of strength on both ends, the weight of my attacker pinning me to the floor and using gravity to his benefit.

I was losing. Whoever the man was, he was a lot stronger than me.

And that was saying something.

Feeling a miniscule shift in his weight as he slowly brought the knife lower, I wrapped my leg around his and rocked him off balance, whipping my elbow back into his face as I rolled away. We both scurried to our feet, and I got a brief glimpse of the situation.

Marta and Nikki were backed into a corner, both of them terrified into immobility for the moment, watching with wide eyes and open mouths.

My opponent was an enormous black man, his size nearly doubled by his massive muscles, and his eyes glinting with the same soullessness I had seen in the first agent Marta had killed.

That would explain the superhuman strength.

His coal black eyes darted from me to Marta and Nikki cowering in the corner, obviously deciding his target, and when he took a meaningful step towards them, I sprung into the offensive.

Not the best tactic, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him even _near_ my girls.

Running towards him, I went into a baseball slide, bringing my boot into his kneecap, while at the same time twisting around to elbow him in the kidneys and take out his other leg with mine.

He fell hard, the knife sliding far out across the floor, but rose just as quickly into the offensive.

So he finally figured out that if he was going to kill anyone, it would have to be me first.

Good for him.

The blows came hard and fast, giving me barely enough time to parry them with my heavily bruised arms, steadily forcing me back. When I took a staggering blow to the ribcage, my back finally met the wall at the end of the room. This time when the man's fist whipped out for my face, I ducked and heard the satisfying _thud_ as he punched the wall, fragments of the drywall falling onto my hair.

At least a few broken fingers there.

Without wasting an instant, I grabbed his wrist and spun with it behind his back, hearing the joint _pop_ and kicking his back so that his face ground into the wall.

Now a broken nose.

His foot came back into my stomach and the air left me all in a gust.

As I was still gasping for air, he turned slowly, his nose gushing blood, and popped his arm back into place with a hiss between clenched teeth, his eyes boring into mine as if he were trying to set me on fire under his furious gaze.

If looks could kill.

"Nikki," I cried out. "Get Marta out here! Go to the warehouse!"

She hesitated, pain and indecision flashing over her face, but her feet moved uncertainly towards the door.

Again, the foot of my attacker whipped out, this time at head height and though I put up both arms to try and lessen the brunt of it, his boot connected with the side of my skull with such force that it made me stagger, my ears ringing and the room spinning. When my eyes finally focused again, it was to see a bruised fist slam into my gut.

Again and again the blows came, each one seemingly harder than the last.

Instinctively, I doubled over, only to feel rough hands whirl me around into a choke hold, one burly arm around my neck and a hand shifting into a position that I knew to spell out a snapped spinal cord.

My eyes landed on Marta's face in the doorway, panicked and desperate, her lips forming my name.

"Warehouse. Now." I gasped, before kicking the door shut.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Holy Hermit Crabs! Did I just kill Aaron?!**


	10. New Life Resolutions

**A/N:**

**I thought it would be cruel to leave poor Aaron in a plight like the one he was in, so here's chapter 10 early.**

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><p><strong><span>Aaron:<span>**

There is a time in everyone's life where time stops. Where the world as we know it ceases to spin. Where everything freezes like a movie on pause, and seconds turn into hours.

And now, standing in an abandoned house in some god-forsaken country, every inch of my body screaming pain, my life literally in the hands of a man with no soul, that time was now.

The sound of the door slamming in Marta's face echoed like a drum beat in my ears. Throbbing in sequence with my pounding heart and the adrenaline flowing through my veins.

_I didn't want her to see. I didn't want her to see me die._

For I was going to die. I knew that. This hold I was in now, how many times had I ended a life the same way? A quick twist and it was over. Like flipping off a light switch.

_I am going to die._

And at that realization, like every novel cliché, my life played over again behind my eyelids like a VIP pass to a movie I didn't really want to see.

I saw the shards of my childhood. Broken memories of a nonexistent mother in a perfect picture frame, and a drunken father leaving bruises the shape of beer bottles. Hours spent in a basement doing nothing but watching a small black beetle try to reach the world outside, but resisted at every step by a dusty pane of glass.

Of an all consuming desire to _belong_, and satiety of that desire when I joined the Army. Of the feeling of helplessness when every one of the soldiers in my squadron, men like brothers to me, were picked off one by one till all was sunk into darkness and oblivion with the sound of the earth exploding.

_Will you commit yourself to this program?_

_Will you commit?_

_Will you commit?_

_Will you commit?_

Then the memories, sharp and clear, of all my missions in Outcome. Of every person that died by my hands. Of Nikki, the light in my life that I never deserved.

Of Marta.

_Marta._

My heart cried out her name like a groan. I could still see her face: panicked and full of fear for...what? Me?

_Why?_

Why did she take care of me? Why did she laugh with me? Why did she pity me? Why did she _stay_ with me? Why didn't she see me as the monster I am? Was it because she couldn't, or because she _choose not too_? Yes, I saved her life. But for what? Only to destroy it later.

What was my life but years spent shattering others? Pursuing constantly what I thought to be the right path, wanting only to belong and make the world a better place, while in reality I was accomplishing the opposite.

I _deserved_ to die.

The hand on my neck shifted to grip at my jaw, preparing, as if in slow motion, for the final movement that would snap my spinal cord and end my life.

_No!_

My heart screamed inside me.

_No! I don't want to die!_

I wasn't done. I didn't want that to be all. I didn't want the life I had lived up to this point to be the whole story. Not when I was just beginning to write it myself.

I wanted to put Outcome behind me. I wanted to start a new life. I wanted to have a job dedicated to protecting people, not hurting them. I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to get married. I wanted to move into a white-picket fence house with her. I wanted to make a family with her, being to my children the father I never had. I wanted to watch them grow up and have children of their own. I wanted to grow old, surrounded by love and peace.

I wanted _life._

Suddenly, I was no longer in Manila, but back in the gym at boot camp.

_"Men." laughed a woman as she punched a sandbag relentlessly, her short golden haired braid bouncing against her back. "You think you all are conquers of the world, that you are invincible." She stopped pounding the bag and turned to me who was watching her amusedly, slightly out of breath but her eyes bright and cheeks flushed._

_I had admired June Monroe from the moment I had first met her for two reasons: that she had been my only true friend, accepting me for who I was, not what I wasn't, and that she was everything I wished I could be too: strong, kind, confident, and smart._

_"I could bring you to your knees with three words." She smirked._

_"Oh yeah?" I said. "And what's that?"_

_"Grab. Twist. Pull." And she laughed at my face._

The flashback evaporated into grim reality.

Marta had wondered why I had stared at her that way when she had dyed and cut her hair. She didn't know that it was because she look so much like her once living alias.

_Did you know her? _Marta had asked. _Not any more,_ had been my truthful answer.

_June Monroe._

_Marta._

_I could bring you to your knees with three words._

_Marta._

_Grab. Twist. Pull._

_Marta._

_GRAB! TWIST! PULL!_

Snapping awake as if from a dream, time began moving again and the world began spinning. The muscles on the arms wrapped around my neck and head, flexed. I went into the offensive. My hands moved.

And I brought him to his knees.

Without looking back, I dove on the floor towards the gun. Feeling its cold metal weight in my hands, I rolled over to see my attacker standing over me, a blind rage flashing in his eyes and pain contorting his face. He pounced.

I fired.

Once my ears stopped ringing, the silence in the house was deafening. For a long while I just lay there on the floor, watching the smoke from the gun waft up in tiny spires to evaporate like ghosts.

I almost died.

I didn't.

I should have died.

I didn't.

And it was because I didn't _die_, that I was willing to _live._

_Marta. Nikki._

It was the thought of them, that made me scramble to my feet, averting my eyes from the scarlet halo that was rapidly forming around the head of the form on the floor, still feeling the gut-wrenching nausea all the same.

My legs felt weak all of sudden, whether it be from recent events or the heretofore lack of oxygen due to the previous choke hold, is your choice, but either way I was forced to lean against the wall for support, and I took the moment to tuck the hot gun into my waistband.

I really had no time to waste. Who knows what trouble Marta and Nikki might be in now? But my only choice was to make my way as quickly as possible towards the warehouse where I hoped they would be waiting.

Taking the stairs up to the roof two steps at a time, I burst through the door and got my bearings, blinking in the sunlight. I could hear no sirens or screams, (God forbid), so I settled upon a direction that I estimated would take me to the warehouse, and took off across the rooftop at an unsteady run that quickly drew strength and speed as I progressed.

I was beginning to think that roof hopping was my new mode of transport.

Every step I took away from that awful house seemed to give me a new energy. My mind had never been so alert, so sharp, so filled with _purpose_, as it was now. My head was swimming with plans, possibilities, prospects for the future, that two weeks ago I would never have dreamed of.

_I'm coming Marta. Stay safe for me. Don't lose hope._

_I'm coming Nikki. Stay strong for me. Don't go where I cant find you._

My feet flew across the rooftops, moving faster and faster with each step. My lungs seemed to be expanding, compensating for the incredible amount of oxygen I was needing to function like this. No wall, or large gap between the rooftops slowed me down, and though my body was on fire with the pain of a thousand blows I had taken, it seemed but a far off sensation compared with the image of the warehouse floating in front of my eyes where I knew my girls would be waiting.

_My girls._ I don't know when I starting thinking about them that way, but that's exactly what they were: _My. Girls_. I would give my life for both of them, _had_ offered up my life for them, and woe to _anyone_ who so much as broke a _hair_ on their heads. There was _nothing_ I would not do for them, and if I was honest with myself, that abundance of emotion both scared me, and made me feel like I could conquer an army barehanded.

Marta, she was the piece to me I didn't know I was missing. She made me feel things. Things I didn't understand, or even _want _to understand. And while Nikki was my light, a link to a family and life I never had, Marta was what made me want to make a new one.

Unfortunately, even I cant run forever, and eventually I had to slow to a fast walk. It was then that I got off of my highway of roofs, and joined the civilian population on the streets. In no time, I was in possession of a motorcycle and speeding my way down the actual highways, following a mental map of the city where the warehouse was highlighted in blue.

Why blue? I don't know. That's just how my brain works.

At long last, the dark shape of the warehouse against the horizon could be seen, and my heart jumped at the sight. Around the perimeter was a large chain link fence topped with barbed wire, while the one visible entrance was a large double gate. The motorcycle hadn't even come to a complete stop, by the time I jumped off of it, leaving it lying on the curb and running for the gate. Inside the lock was a bent hairpin.

Atta girl, Nikki.

Passing through the gate, I ran for the warehouse door. At the handle, however, I forced myself to slow down. Who knows what could be waiting inside, and I needed to be prepared for everything. Taking a breath, I opened the door, and slipped noiselessly into the enormous warehouse.

Inside, illuminated by a thousand ceiling lights, was a multitude of private planes, their sides glossy with a fresh coat of wax. There was no immediate sign of life however, and I stood stock still for a moment, straining my ears for any sound, and picking up the distant noise of whispering far on the other side of the warehouse, I crept forward on hunters feet.

Peering around the fuselage of a bright red plane, I perceived that the source of the whispering was two forms seated on a stack of crates.

It was Nikki and Marta.

My heart stopped for a moment with relief at the sight of seeing them safe and unharmed, and I stepped out from the cover of the plane.

They both turned at the sound of my purposefully heavy footfall, starting up like birds ready to take flight, but upon seeing me their faces lit up into ecstasies of joy.

Marta made a sound that sounded like my name, and before I could even think, flew into my arms.

"You're alive." She repeated over and over again, and I felt a hot tear land on my neck.

I held her close, thinking vaguely of how she fit perfectly against me.

"Oh, Marta," I whispered into her ear. "How could I ever leave you?"

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><p><strong>AN:**

**See? Though Aaron is a little beat up, he's safe, and I think he just got his wake up call. :)**

**Leave a review, please!**

**Oh and just a side note: The opinions expressed by June Monroe are exclusively her own, so any Guys out there, no offense. You rule! ;D**


	11. Sixty Minutes

**A/N:**

**Ahhh! I'm sorry its been so long! My Avengers fic was stealing all my head canon (Something you should totally check out), and the days have been brutal on me. But I finally have a chapter out, and I think its one all of you will really like.**

**Enjoy, and don't forget to write me a review!**

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><p><strong><span>Nikki:<span>**

"هنا هو القهوة الخاص بك". The waitress said in Arabic, as she set my coffee down on the table.

"شكرا لك." I returned with a smile, and she walked back into the cafe.

Taking a sip of my coffee, I leaned back in my chair sighing, letting the hot Moroccan sun seep warmth into my bones.

This was a fools errand. A crazy idea that had a 96% chance of failure; that's 4% in our favor—not very inspiring. Still, both Aaron and Jason had a knack for defying the odds.

_Come on, Jason. Where are you?_

It was Aaron's idea to come back to the place where I had last seen him, or more accurately, _felt _him. To the same city, and the same cafe in Morocco where Bourne had last left me, and where a couple days later I thought he was watching me.

_"It's our only link to him,"_ Aaron had said, _"and if what you are saying is true, if Bourne has been checking up on you, then we need to make it as easy as possible for him to find you. And what does a person do when they are looking for someone?"_

_"They go back to the last place they saw them and trace their steps from there." _I had answered.

_"Exactly."_

So that's just what I was doing: sitting alone at a table just outside the cafe, in full view of the street and surrounding buildings, waiting for some sign, some indication, that just maybe Bourne was out there somewhere.

On the table in front of me, was a small scrap of paper with the English words: _We need to talk_ scribbled on it. If Bourne did, by some crazy chance, find me, then he would see my note and know what to do.

The minutes turned into hours.

The street life, at first interesting in all of its diversity, soon became loud and obnoxious to my ears, and the initial anxious excitement I had initially felt, faded after the first three hours.

My mind, once alert and scanning every face in the crowd, now sunk into a dreamlike reverie.

Aaron was safe. The thought still gave me chills.

Shortly after we had been reunited, Aaron hijacked one of the numerous planes in the warehouse, and in an hour's time we were hovering over the South China Sea.

We landed in a large field that was about a mile out from a small village in Myanmar, and what followed was three exhausting days of traveling along the mainland till we at last reached Tangier.

During that time, one thing became clear to me: something had happened in that house in Manila, for Aaron was changed.

He laughed more, smiled more, was even keener in his perception if such a thing is possible, and when he looked at Marta...

I saw something in his eyes that made me hope. A spark of life that had never been there before. And for once, the realization of the possibility of finality to the snare he was caught in, of a chance to the life that he had heretofore been forbidden, it made me dream for him.

I got up and began to pace, needing to get the blood flowing in my veins after sitting down so long. The sun, once high, was now beginning its decent and the air was noticeably cooler. A small scuffle broke out on the street, as a native had accidentally knocked over a basket containing mangoes on a nearby stall. Some of the mangoes had been squashed under the feet of the bustling crowd and the vender was demanding that the native pay for the damaged goods. Naturally a heated argument broke out and both men began screaming at each other in Arabic, while some of the bystanders also joined the fray, shouting out their opinions and taking the side of either angered man.

This scene attracted my attention for a while, but I soon grew bored of it and returned to my seat at the table.

Suddenly I froze.

There on the glass tabletop, placed over the scrap of paper, was a small black burner phone.

My head instantly whipped up, scanning the faces in the crowd, looking down both ends of the street and at the buildings around me, but there was no one and nothing out of place or that I recognized.

Snatching up the phone, I went to the menu screen and clicked on the contacts.

It was empty except for one number with no name.

With trembling hands, I dialed the number, and waited as it rung, my heart in my throat. It rang only twice before the static over the speaker changed, as if someone had answered but did not speak.

"Jason?" I whispered cautiously.

"You said you needed to talk." It was Jason's voice, no question about it.

"Yes, but—"

"Meet me at the Cap Spartel Lighthouse in one hour." And he hung up before I could say another word.

I blinked, took the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen for a moment before disconnecting the line and dialing the number for Aaron's burn phone.

Again, two rings before the static changed but no answering voice.

"Aaron, its me, Nikki." I said softly.

"Nikki! What phone are you calling on?" he replied easily once he heard my voice.

"The phone that Jason Bourne left on my table."

I heard the creaking of a chair in the background as if he had suddenly sat up at my words. "You made contact with Bourne?!"

"Brief contact, but yes. He wants to set up a meet at the Cap Spartel Lighthouse in an hour."

Again I heard a noise in the background, but this time it was a faint beeping, and I attributed it to Aaron setting his watch to a 60 minute countdown. "Where are you now?" his voice the low serious tone he uses whenever the gears of his linear tactical mind are moving, forming a plan, a tactical approach.

"I'm still at the cafe." I answered.

"Wait there, I'll pick you up soon." And with that, he hung up.

_What is it with men and saying goodbye? _Then again, my experience with men was pretty much limited to no-nonsense trained killers.

Dismembering the burner phone in my hands, I dropped it on the street and watched as hundreds of feet crushed it to pieces.

True to his word, within ten minutes a taxi pulled up to the curve and Aaron's face appeared in the window motioning me in.

As soon as I took my place beside Marta in the car, Aaron began grilling me on every detail of my interaction with Jason. There wasn't much to tell, and soon he had to settle with the silence of the taxi, his leg bobbing up and down in anticipation.

Marta too was anxious. She knew how important this meeting with Bourne would be, but most importantly, she knew who he was.

As for myself, I couldn't sort through my tangled mess of emotions. All I knew was that I was eager to see him again. I had..._missed_ him, in some strange unexplainable way.

The countdown on Aaron's watch had reached twenty minutes when the taxi driver suddenly stopped.

"هذا قدر ما اذهب إلا إذا كنت تريد أن تدفع لي عشرين درهم أكثر." Our driver said turning to look at Aaron.

I knew only the very basics of Arabic so I was mostly at a loss, but Aaron I knew to speak it fluently.

"He wont take us any further unless we pay him an extra twenty dirham's." Aaron explained.

"Why?" Marta asked.

Aaron shrugged. "Something about the lighthouse being out of the way and hard to get to. Most of the drivers here don't take you there unless you pay them extra." He turned to the expectant driver. "سنقوم المشي."

The driver shrugged and popped the trunk, while Aaron motioned for Marta and I to get out. He paid the driver a modest sum, before taking out our backpacks from the trunk, passing mine to me and slipping his and Marta's over his shoulders.

With a glance at his watch, Aaron led us down a dusty road, the sound of the distant waves crashing wafting up our ears.

I used to wonder how Aaron seemed to know where _everything_ is—that is until I started to notice the hour he would spend staring at a map of either the location we were in, or the location we were going to. He would hardly even blink, completely oblivious to all except for the roll of paper spread out in front of him, his eyes starting in the corner and slowly but surely covering every inch, going over every line, until he reached the opposite corner—only to start the process all over again and do it once more to be sure.

Somehow, someway, during that time, he would transfer the map on the paper in front of him, into a mental map in his head that could be referred to at any time and with perfect accuracy.

It was only one truly astounding example of the things he could do. All just by altering two chromosomes.

I was never one for science, but the fact that someone could achieve _that _level of enhancement just by mixing together a few chemicals is absolutely mind bending for me.

The roar of the ocean was now almost deafening, and up ahead glimmering through the trees could be seen the mysterious blue of the sea. Standing tall on a slight rise overlooking the beach and far out to the horizon, towered a large mosaic engraved lighthouse.

The Cap Spartel Lighthouse.

Aaron's watch suddenly chirped out its opinion that we were out of time, before he quickly silenced it. Still we all hesitated by the tree-line for a moment, staring up at the brick monument, before Aaron took the lead across the sand and to the door.

It was secured by two heavy padlocks with chains, but someone had tampered with them, for the padlocks were unlocked, though left in place with the chains still clinging to them so that one would think that it was still secured from a distance.

I saw a hint of a smirk cross over Aaron's face as he saw this, and I wondered what he thought.

He made a move to reach for the handle, but I beat him to it. "Let me go first." I said, with a meaningful glance at him. "Jason knows me. I can only think how he will react if he sees you first." Aaron nodded at this and backed up a step to give me room to enter.

"Wait at the stairs." I whispered, before slipping inside.

It was eerily quiet. The wind could be heard whistling through the fixtures far up in roof, and the noises it made echoed down the stone stairwell like ghostly whispers.

Slowly I took the stairs step by step, my footsteps sounding on the stone. When I was halfway up I heard the sound of the door opening below me and knew that Aaron and Marta were following behind.

At last I reached the end of the staircase, my legs burning from the hike up, and the room at the top slowly became visible.

Silhouetted against one of the large windows that faced the sea, stood the form of Jason Bourne, his hands in his pockets as he looked out over the horizon.

He heard my step. Turned.

"Nikki," he greeted in a soft voice, a smile spreading over his face that actually looked real.

He took a step towards me, his eyes darting over my figure in his customary cursory glance, looking for injuries, signs of duress, weapons, bugs, anything that would give him a clue—though I did notice his eyes linger on my face as if he was generally curious at how I was doing.

"Hello Jason," I breathed, wondering why I was suddenly short of air.

My eyes also traveled over him, taking in as much as I could of his person. It had seemed like years since I had seen him last.

He was tanner than before, and had ditched the threatening black clothes for simple cargo pants and a plain white collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and with a flattering fit.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was no longer wearing black or a bulky coat, or that he wasn't bleeding, but he seemed stronger and healthier. His face was more relaxed and at peace than I had seen him in years—for remember, I was his psychiatrist long before I became his accomplice. The smile on his face, so _real_ looking, the fact that it was directed at me making feel something deep in the pit of my stomach, took years off of him and made him seem young and dashing again.

He looked..._happy_.

Though right now his eyes held a hint of concern for me.

"You said you needed to talk," he began, a line forming on his forehead and the smile fading. Something jumped inside of me and I wanted to snatch back that smile before it vanished forever—it was so rare and beautiful. "Are you alright? Are you in trouble? Has anyone approached you? Are you being followed?"

The questions came hard and fast, while he quickly closed the distance between us and came to stand before me, towering over me in an almost protective way.

"Nikki," he prompted, the line on his forehead broadening in concern, as I had not spoken. "Are you in danger?"

I shook my head as if to clear it. "No," I cried quickly, but hastened to correct myself. "I mean, not right now—not really."

He frowned, and I sighed, taking a breath and collecting my thoughts that seemed to have scattered at some point.

"Jason," I began, calmer this time, "there's something I need to tell you."

He crossed his arms in an expectant manner, waiting.

I opened my mouth to tell him about Aaron, when my brother chose at that exact, poorly timed minute to walk into the room, Marta following.

And before I could stop him, Jason reacted.

In a blink of an eye, he had shoved me to take cover behind him, and whipped out a gun from some concealed spot on his person so fast that I couldn't see from where.

Everything would have been fine, I'm sure, if Jason hadn't made one crucial mistake: he pointed the gun at Marta.

In a millisecond, Aaron had stepped between Marta and the crosshairs, disarming Jason, the gun clattering to the floor. However in the same instant, Jason retaliated with a hard blow to the ribcage, and slammed Aaron bodily into the wall, his hands on his throat.

Aaron kneed him twice in the stomach, forcing him back the inches he needed to kick him hard in the gut. Jason stumbled and fell from the force of the kick, but used the momentum to propel him across the floor towards his gun, which he snatched up, rising to one knee and aiming the weapon at Aaron, who had by this time drawn his own gun from the back of his waistband and was also pointing the barrel at Jason.

"Drop the gun!" Jason shouted.

"Put down the gun!" Aaron cried at the same time, both of them shifting their hands for a better grip as they glared at each other through their sights.

"No!" Marta screamed, jumping in front of Aaron and putting her hands up.

Aaron frowned and lowered the gun, his fighting instinct draining out of him as he saw Marta's face, remembering, after the haze of adrenaline cleared from his eyes, that they needed Bourne.

By that time I was by Jason's side, also with my hands up, and begging him to stop.

"He's with me, Jason! He's not going to hurt you!"

Jason's eyes never left Aaron and his gun never lowered, but I could see the hesitation in his face.

"He's my brother!" I continued, encouraged by the flash of doubt. "Jason, please! He's my brother! Drop the gun!"

For a moment, he didn't move, but then his eyes flicked to my face and I gave an encouraging nod. He lowered the gun, but never shifted his hands, an uneasy distrust on his face.

"Jason," I whispered softly, laying one hand on his shoulder and the other over his gripping the gun, gently prying at his fingers. "Give me the gun."

His eyes flicked to my face, his expression showing slight surprise at my touch.

"Give me the gun," I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper and my eyes never leaving his.

I think my heart broke when he finally relaxed his hands, his fingers brushing mine as I gently took the gun from his grasp. I immediately emptied the chamber and dropped both the cartridge and the gun on the floor.

Across the room, Aaron had already followed suit, kicking the gun across the floor to stop at Jason's feet as a sign of peace, while Marta interlaced her fingers between his with a grateful glance.

Though Aaron's eyes never left Jason, I didn't miss the comforting little squeeze he gave her hand.

Jason stood stock still, his eyes flicking from Aaron to Marta, though mostly eyeing Aaron, while something unreadable flashed in his eyes and his frown deepened as he glanced at Aaron's gun at his feet.

"Who are you?" he said, the tension evident in his voice.

Jason wasn't one to like being without a weapon.

"My name's Aaron Cross, this is Doctor Marta Shearing." Aaron spoke calmly, motioning to Marta who still stood slightly behind him. "I'm Nikki's brother."

Jason turned to me. "You have a brother?"

I smiled, glancing at Aaron. "The best kept secret of my life." I explained.

Jason shifted on the balls of his feet. "Okay..." he looked from me, to Marta, to Aaron, his gaze lingering on the sturdy form of the ex-Outcome operative.

"You're in all this mess too, aren't you?" he said in a low voice. "With skills like yours, you've got to be an operative. And your Nikki's brother. And now she sets up a meeting with me, both of you in tow? What do you want?"

Jason was never one to pass over details.

"We need your help," Marta voiced, taking a step forward so that she came to stand beside Aaron.

Jason scoffed. "Yeah, I kinda got that part. Though I must confess, your boyfriend attacking me kinda gave me pause."

Aaron's eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms, but otherwise didn't rise to the challenge.

Marta, on the other hand, did.

"You stuck a gun in my face!" she shouted, feeling defensive of Aaron. "If Aaron had pulled his on Nikki, what would you do?"

One could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

Suddenly Jason gave a dry laugh. "I like her!" he muttered to me.

Marta blushed, suddenly reserved again, and Aaron's eyes narrowed more.

"It was all just a hyper-defensive misunderstanding." I soothed, coming to stand in between them, trying to repair any damage done.

Honestly, I have no idea where Marta's sudden fire came from.

This was not going according to plan. We needed Jason's help, and to get that he had to trust us. Which, so far, was not working out very well.

Hey, at least we got past the guns in everybody's face part.

"Nikki's right," Aaron said, coming to stand beside me in a nonaggressive manner, obviously trying to overlook the tactical vulnerabilities and make a statement of peace to Jason. Something that I was thankful for.

"We're not your enemies." he confirmed, his eyes never leaving Jason's in a way that could only mean he spoke the truth. "I'm sorry I attacked you. It's just...well you pointed the gun at Marta, and I reacted. You know how it is..." he trailed off.

Jason actually glanced at me. "I do actually." he said in a low voice, barely audible.

"Like Marta said," Aaron continued, "we need your help." He shrugged. "Nikki was our way in."

Jason's eyes passed slowly over every face, frowning as he thought.

At length he folded his arms and sat back on his heels, evidently deciding that Aaron and Marta were no longer a threat.

"Alright," he muttered. "What do you need my help for?"

A hint of a smile crossed over Aaron's face.

"It's a long story."

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Hehehe! The age old question of what happens when Jason Bourne and Aaron Cross fight? There is no winner.**

**Aaron is collecting quite the group, and a very formidable one at that now that Jason is apart of the team.**

**Hope you guys liked it, and leave me a review! Also, don't forget to check out my new Avengers fic that I just started. You can view it on my profile.**

**Till next time! ;D**


	12. Both Operatives

**A/N:**

**Hi guys!**

**So sorry its been a bit since I've updated. I've been sick, and quite honestly, my other Avengers fic has been stealing all my inspiration again. (Which, by the way, you should _totally_ check out! I'm very proud of it.)**

**Thanks again to all of you guys for your reviews, especially you Outcome5Cross, who has been with me from the beginning and who I can always rely on to review as soon as I post a chapter. It was really you, Cristina Cross, with your pestering me to update, that made me start working on it. Well here is your update all, and I hope you like it, even though it is shorter than all the rest. (Sorry!)**

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><p><strong><span>Jason:<span>**

I seen a lot of things in my day.

I know that makes me sound old, and in all honesty I _feel_ old (though I'm really not), but its true: not a lot can surprise me.

The story that Nikki's brother related, however, did. And as he talked, instinct told me that every word he uttered was the truth.

I had felt his strength as we had fought, and the fact that not many men are stronger than me, at least in fighting areas, gave me another kick of adrenaline. However, when I speedily learned that strength was not his only strong suit, as his tactical way of fighting and simply the fact that he could disarm me in the first place showed that, the thrill of adrenaline was quickly coupled with a pang of fear. Fear that this man was as good, if not better, than I am, and that he would finally be my undoing.

Assassins don't feel fear, you say? Well you're wrong. Of course we feel fear, we're human just like you.

We feel fear every time we enter a building, knowing that when we leave it, someone will have died—maybe even us. We feel fear every time we round a corner, knowing that death could lie at the other end. We feel fear every time we wake up in the morning after suffering another nightmare filled night, wondering if this will be the day when all of your past sins finally catch up to you. We feel fear every time we draw a breath, hoping that it wont be your last, while at the same time morbidly wishing that it would. Our lives _are _fear.

We just hide it under a show of false bravado, cold confidence, a change of tactics, or a practiced stony mask.

I only wanted to protect Nikki, first.

But then, as quickly as the fight started, it was over.

The woman, who I had initially threatened with my gun as I had seen her first, had jumped in front of Aaron, both protecting him with her body and prohibiting Aaron from shooting me, while at the same time she pleaded with him with her eyes.

The tables turned so drastically after that, that I was rather dazed at what to do.

Nikki, however, with her gentle fingers brushing up with mine, her hand radiating heat where it rested on my shoulder, and her face inches away, tried to remind me.

It was her eyes that made me finally release the gun and submit to her.

They looked like..._Marie's_.

They told me that they were here for my help. My _help_.

Did they know who I was? Did they know what I have done? Of course they did, one look at Nikki's brother told me that. Chances were he was in the same business as I am.

As I _was._

The woman, however, was a mystery. Why would she stick around with the likes of him? What was her connection? For there obviously was one. Heck, they were holding hands, she had jumped in front of the crosshairs to save his life, right after he had started a fight to save hers.

What could they possibly need _my _help for?

Slowly, as Aaron talked, all of my questions were answered as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and I found that, like always, it was all my fault. It was my actions that almost got them killed, that set off this chain of events. Aaron had said that there were six "program participants" in Outcome alone—might as well add five more to the rapidly growing list of people that I have killed. A list that I thought I had closed forever when I became "dead".

"All we need from you is your story, and any information you might have on Treadstone, Blackbrier, even past ops you've run—all preferably by a recording device." Aaron was watching me closely.

I thought over how alike we were: our past lives, our training, our situation, how he was now trying to walk out on Outcome just like how I had walked out on Treadstone and Blackbrier—only he was doing it in a way that would settle for good the outcome of more than one life.

He was still holding the doctor's hand, almost in a covert manner, their intertwined fingers partly hidden by their bodies, and I thought I could read something in the possessive, _protective_ way he clasped hers.

_You stuck a gun in my face! If Aaron had pulled his on Nikki, what would you do?_

What would I do? Exactly what he had, only I would have had no qualms about finishing the job.

I confess that ever since I had swum to safety out of that river I supposedly died in, I set about tracking down Nikki. I had long ago sworn that no matter how many lies I told others, no matter how many masks I adopted, I would always stay honest to myself; and it was with that same reasoning that I knew, no matter how much I wanted to refute the fact, that I definitely felt something for Nikki.

I don't want to call it love—it wasn't that yet—but instinct told me that whatever life, whatever future I had beyond Blackbrier, it would somehow involve her.

She wasn't that hard to find, still in Tangier, the final destination of the train I had left her on in Marrakech, and soon I had tracked her movements and found out where she was staying, her habits, how she was living.

I even watched her from afar for a while, using a scope from the vantage points of rooftops, or following her in crowds. A few times I felt that she might have suspected, a thought that gave me a thrill of something I didn't want to overanalyze. Yet through all of this, through all that we had been through, I never approached her. No matter what my thoughts and feelings might have been, when faced with her before me, it seemed an almost selfish thing of me to do—to intrude into the life she was building for herself after I had destroyed her old one.

Besides, I wasn't sure if I was even wanted.

It gave me pause when she suddenly disappeared for six days, vanishing with a skill that I both admired her for, and worried about. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a clue to where she had gone.

Something that I thought at the time was probably for the best.

So I let her go. I stopped looking, and hunkered down in Tangier wondering what on earth I should do with my life now.

Well, that's not entirely true. I say that I let her go, but I never really did. I would still, against my better judgment, keep tabs on the cafe she had frequented—holding on to some piece of her, hoping that one day she would turn up again.

Imagine my surprise when she finally did, and with a note before her saying that she needed to talk.

Yes, Aaron and I were very much alike. We were both operatives, trying to undo all of the havoc we had created and begin afresh. We were both operatives, compromised in ways we could never hope to repair, by the two people in our lives who we never thought were a threat.

"Together, with your statement, the Chems and blood sample from the agent in Manila, and a blood sample from Aaron combined with his statement," Marta says, filling in the silence after Aaron's words as I thought, "we thought that it would be enough to go public."

I nodded. The pieces in my mind were now complete, forming a complex and dangerous picture.

"You said," I began, speaking to Aaron, "that you suspect the man from Manila to be from a separate program."

Aaron nodded. "Him and the other guy who I fought in the house; they both had the same advanced enhancement; both were stronger than me, had a higher pain tolerance, and didn't seem to be….._present_, to say the least."

I shifted in my stance against the wall. "Okay. Do you know the name of that program?"

For an answer Aaron turned to Marta, mumbling to her a few words that I didn't catch. She bent from her seat on the windowsill beside him, to fumble through their backpack on the floor, producing something and passing it to Aaron.

"Everyone in Outcome were given one of these to store their Chems," Aaron spoke, displaying for me to see a necklace that looked like a dog tag. "On the back of mine, the words _Outcome 05_ were inscribed, and I later learned from Marta that I was known as Number 5 to the people in the lab and beyond. Look what's on the back of the Manila agent's." And Aaron passed the necklace to me.

I took it, turning it over to read the inscription as he directed.

_LARX 03,_ it read.

"LARX..." I mumbled. "So that's the name of the program?"

"We believe so," Aaron confirmed, before sighing slightly and turning to Marta. "I should have gotten the necklace off of the man at the house." he muttered with a frown. "I should've—"

"You didn't." Marta cut him off, laying her hand on his arm. "You were worried about us, and you didn't. There's no use kicking yourself over something you cant change."

Aaron was silent, but he laid a hand over the one on his arm, giving it a small squeeze before turning back to me.

"So," he said, "will you help us?"

I looked towards Nikki who was sitting cross-legged on the floor and waiting for my answer.

Our eyes met.

"The question is: do you have a recorder?"

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Yay, a bit of Jason action! And some Nikki/Jason implications too... (We really need a ship name for them. Jakki, Nikson, Jarson, I don't know...there has to be something better than those...Help me!)**

**Anyways, reviews are like gummy worms, which everybody knows is like the best thing ever! Also, don't forget to check out my Avengers fic on my profile! If you are a huge Marvel nerd like me, I promise you will like it! ;D**


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